w^ 


THE   BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND 
MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 


THE  BRAHMANS,  THEISTS 
AND    MUSLIMS    OF    INDIA 

Studies  of  Goddess-worship  in  Bengal^  Caste ^  Brahmaism 

and  Social  Reform ^  with  descriptive  Sketches  of  curious 

Festivals,   Ceremonies,  and  Faquirs 


BY 

JOHN    CAMPBELL    OMAN 

FORMERLY   PROFESSOR  OF  NATURAL  SCIENCE  IN   THE  GOVERNMENT  COLLEGE,   LAHORE 

author  of 
"the  mystics,  ascetics,  and  saints  of  India"  "Indian  life,  religious 

AND   social"    "the  great    INDIAN    EPICS "    "WHERE   THREE    CREEDS    MEET" 
ETC.    ETC.    , 


H^TH  ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS  AND  FROM  DRAFTINGS  BT 
WILLIAM    CAMPBELL    OMAN,  A.R.I.B.A. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE    W.    JACOBS    &    CO. 

PUBLISHERS 


/ 


All  Rights  Reserved 


My  object  in  writing  this  book  being  to  interpret,  however 
imperfectly,  the  present-day  Indians  to  the  English  public, 
I  have  done  my  best  to  bring  my  readers  into  actual  touch, 
as  it  were,  with  contemporary  India  at  various  points,  using 
my  somewhat  exceptional  personal  experiences,  as  much  as 
possible,  in  illustrating  and  elucidating  the  subjects  dealt 
with,  which,  although  by  no  means  esoteric,  have  yet  to  be 
sought  for,  and  do  not,  in  ordinary  course,  come  within  the 
ken  of  Europeans  in  India  whether  official  or  non-official. 
Following  the  plan  adopted  in  my  previous  books,  I 
have  included  in  this  volume  such  legends  and  stories  as 
seemed  to  me  to  throw  light  upon  the  habits  or  the  mental 
peculiarities  of  the  Indian  people. 

The  figures  recorded  in  the  recently  published  Eeport  on 
the  Census  of  the  Empire  show  that  more  than  a  half  of  the 
entire  number  of  men  and  women  under  British  rule  follow 
the  Hindu  religion ;  that  Islam  claims  another  quarter  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Empire,  and  that  the  remainder  is 
made  up  of  Christians  {including  those  of  the  United  King- 
dom, Ireland,  the  Colonies,  and  India),  and  of  Buddhists,  Jains, 
Jews,  etc. 

Very  striking  and  significant  figures  indeed  are  these,  and 
may  well  awaken  many  trains  of  thought  and  speculation. 


20812: 


PREFACE 

Confining  our  attention  to  India  (with  Burmah),  we  find 
that  when  the  last  census  was  taken  (1901)  there  were  in 
those  vast  territories  less  than  three  millions  of  Christians 
(Europeans  and  Natives  all  told)  against  two  hundred  and 
seven  millions  of  Hindus,  and  over  sixty-two  millions  of 
Muhammadans,  each  of  these  divisions  leing  composed  of  a 
great  variety  of  races  and  nationalities  speaking  diverse  tongues. 

The  Buddhists,  Jains,  Sikhs,  Animists,  etc.,  inhabiting 
India  and  Burmah  made  up  a  further  total  of  about  twenty- 
two  millions. 

These  notable  statistics  are  enough  to  make  it  clear  that 
out  of  the  vast  and  profound  ocean  of  Indian  social  and 
religious  life,  it  was  only  possible  for  me  to  take  just  a  few 
examples  of  what  may  be  gathered  in  that  obscure  yet 
seductive  region  of  investigation, 

Hinduism,  with  its  enormous  and  varied  following,  its 
heterogeneous  structure  and  its  fascinating  remoteness  from 
European  feeling  and  sentiment,  afforded  the  largest  choice 
of  subjects  and  occupies  the  major  portion  of  this  volume. 
But  Islam,  which,  as  regards  numbers,  ranks  next  amongst 
the  religions  of  India,  has  also  a  place  in  the  book ;  being 
represented — no  doubt  very  inadequately — by  two  papers 
("  Muharram  "  and  "  Faquirs  ")  intended  to  bring  into  view 
some  of  the  more  salient  features  of  that  great  Semitic 
cult  so  nearly  allied  to  Judaism. 

In  describing  and  commenting  upon  such  examples  of 
Indian  beliefs  and  practices  as  I  have  selected  to  lay  before 
my  readers,  my  own  limitations  have  been  ever  present  to 
my  mind,  yet  I  claim  that  my  constant  endeavour  has  been 
towards  accuracy  of  statement  and  fairness  of  interpretation. 

To  my  son,  Mr.  W.  Campbell  Oman,  I  am  indebted  for 
the  illustrations  which  appear  in  this  volume ;  also  for 
reading  the  entire  MS.  of  the  book  very  carefully,  and  help- 
ing me  with  many  suggestions. 

J.  C.  0. 

MuswELL  Hill,  London,  N. 


CONTENTS 


PAttR 

Preface  ........        v 


PART  I 

CHAPTER  I 

KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM  (GODDESS-WORSHIP) 
IN  BENGAL 

Section  I.— The  Kali  Cultus — Legends  of  the  Goddess 
AND  Temple 

Kali-Ghat — Architectural  peculiarities — Insignificance  in  comparison 
with  Western  and  even  other  Hindu  temples — Sacrificial  stakes — 
Bloody  character  of  ritual — Human  sacrifices — Unseemly  scrim- 
mage— Fonns  in  which  Kali  is  represented — Worshipped  as  "  giver 
of  victory  " — Her  legendary — Special  claims  to  veneration  of  the 
temple  of  Kali-Ghat — Absence  of  beauty  from  the  Kali  cultus — 
Swinging  festival — Why  women  are  more  religious  than  men — 
Interesting  incidents  in  connection  with  Kali  worship  —  Sub- 
ordinate temples — Politics  and  the  temple  .  •  .3 

Section  II. — The  Worship  of  Durga 

The  Goddess  Durga — Hindu  idea  of  the  acquisition  of  supernatural 

power  by  means  of  austerities — The  Durga  pujah — Its  excesses     .      21 

Section  III. — The  widespread  Infltjekce  of  Dukga  and  Kali 

Three-fourths  of  the  Hindus  of  Bengal  worship  Durga  and  Kali — 

These  cults  have  extended  beyond  the  limits  of  India  proper         .      24 

Section  IV.— The  Saktas 

Indian  worship  of  the  Female  energy  in  Nature — Obscene  rites — 

Position  of  women  in  Bengali  society         .  .  •  .26 

Section  V. — The  Religion  of  the  Educated  Classes 

The  Higher  Hinduism — Inoperative  as  regards  the  masses — Religion 

a  sacred  disease        .......       30 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  II 

CASTE  IN  INDIA 

Section  L— The  more  obvious  Features  of  the  Present- 
day  Caste  System 

PAGE 

Hindus  divided  into  castes  —  Numerous  main  tribes  and  castes — 
Examples  of  Hindu  exclusiveuess  —  Contamination  may  result 
from  the  mere  touch  of  a  European  —  Hereditary  character  of 
handicrafts  and  occupations  —  Commcnsalism,  its  rules  and 
difficulties — Disregard  by  certain  persons  of  the  prescribed  rules 
about  eating  with  other  than  caste-mates— Origin  of  the  Pirali 
Brahmans  of  Bengal  —  Nuptial  laws  and  their  application  — 
Panchayats  and  their  uses — Exclusion  from  caste— Ceremony  of 
expulsion — Nature  of  the  penalty  of  expulsion — Readmission  to 
the  privileges  of  caste  .  .  .  .  .  .34 

Section  II.— The  Origin  of  the  Caste  System  as 

EXPLAINED   BY  THE  PaNDITS 

The  four  varnas  or  castes  and  their  duties — Myth  of  the  origin  of  the 
castes — Arrogance  of  the  Brahmans  and  their  extravagant  pre- 
tensions— Privileges  enjoyed  by  the  Brahmans  under  Hindu  law — 
Conflict  between  Brahmans  and  Kshatriyas  —  Extermination  of 
Kshatriyas  by  Parasharama  —  Orthodox  view  of  the  origin  of 
many  well-established  castes  .  .  .  .  .49 

Section  III. — The  existing  Hindu  Caste  System  contrasted 
WITH  THE  Theoretical  System  of  the  Old  Books 

Seven  Indian  castes  noticed  by  Megasthenes — Multiplicity  of  castes 
found  at  present  time — Mr.  Risley's  general  statement  with 
respect  to  Sudras  in  different  parts  of  India — Occupational  groups 
— The  castes  of  to-day  not  necessarily  identical  with  those  of  the 
past — Contemporary  Brahmans,  their  peculiarities,  occupations, 
and  customs — Caste  the  distinctive  feature  of  Indian  life — Caste 
and  Karma — Caste  among  Muslims  .  .  .  .55 

Section  IV. — Caste  outside  the  Hindu  System,  a 

DiGRESSIONAL   StUDY 

Caste  exists  in  European  communities — Hereditary  caste  distinctions 
have  often  been  fixed  by  law  in  Europe  and  exist  in  the  aristo- 
cracies of  to-day — Caste  prejudices  most  pronounced  where  white 
and  coloured  races  meet — United  States  of  America  and  South 
Africa  are  good  examples — Caste  prejudices  are  not  due  to 
instinctive  race  antipathy  but  to  desire  to  exploit  "inferior 
races" — Much  vilification  of  subject  races  inevitable — Summary 
of  the  causes  which  engender  caste  distinctions      .  .  .63 


CONTENTS 


Section  V. — An  Attempt  to  throav  some  Light  on  the 
Genesis  and  Evolution  of  the  Hindu  Caste  System 

PAOI 

The  Sanskrit  word  for  caste  vama  (colour)  indicates  that  the  Hindu 
caste  system  originated  in  racial  differences — Aryan  invasions  of 
India  took  place  in  the  past — Certain  class  divisions  were  estab- 
lished amongst  the  invaders  for  their  own  security — With  the 
advance  of  Aryan  bands  into  the  interior,  intermarriage  with 
aborigines  though  tabooed  would  take  place  and  new  mixed 
classes  or  castes  would  arise — Ethnological  facts,  certain  peculi- 
arities of  Hinduism,  and  the  exceptional  position  of  the  Brahmans 
throw  light  on  the  subject — The  origination  of  new  castes  takes 
place  even  now — Caste  system  owes  its  vitality  to  the  influence 
of  the  Brahmans,  whose  ascendancy  depends  upon  it         .  .75 


Section  VI. — Caste  considered  with  respect  to  its 
Political  and  Economic  Aspects  and  its  probable  Future 

Orientals  not  necessarily  more  burdened  by  rules  of  social  intercourse 
than  Westerns  are  —  Attitude  of  British  Government  towards 
caste  —  OflBcial  disregard  of  caste  prejudices  has  often  led  to 
serious  trouble  —  Caste  as  a  political  force  —  Caste  from  the 
industrial  point  of  view — From  the  ethical  standpoint — Caste,  a 
bulwark  of  Hinduism,  is  being  undermined  by  commercialism  and 
Mammon-worship  —  Railways,  hospitals,  and  other  institutions 
inimical  to  caste  —  Effects  of  English  education  —  The  probable 
future  ........      86 


CHAPTER  III 

THEISM  IN  BENGAL— A  STUDY  IN  BRAHMAISM 

Section  I. — Ram  Mohun  Roy,  the  Bengali  Theistic 
Reformer — His  Life  and  Work 

Assailed  by  Islam  and  Christianity,  Hinduism  has  developed  diverse 
sects — Not  the  least  interesting  is  the  Brahma  Samaj  founded  by 
Ram  Mohun  Roy — Early  days  of  R.  M.  Roy — Settles  in  Calcutta 
(1814),  and  occupies  himself  with  religious  controversies  and  social 
reforms — Hindu  College  established  in  1817 — Mr.  Derozio's  pro- 
fessorship (1828-31)  and  teaching — A  great  convulsion  produced 
in  Bengali  society — Dr.  Duff  makes  some  converts  to  Christianity 
— Ram  Mohun  Roy  founds  the  Brahma  Samaj  (1830) — Proceeds  to 
England  as  envoy  of  Mogul  Emperor — His  reception  in  England — 
Dies  there  (1833) — His  character  and  work.  .  .  .99 


CONTENTS 


Section  II.— Debendea  Nath  Tagoee  and  the  Adi  Beahma 
Samaj— The  Fiest  Schism  led  by  Keshttb  Chundee  Sen 

PAGB 

Ram  Mohun  Roy  dies  in  debt  and  the  Samaj  becomes  all  but  extinct — 
In  1841  Debendra  Nath  Tagore  takes  the  Samaj  in  hand — Insti- 
tutes new  niles  for  its  management  —  Abandons  the  Vedas  as 
inconsistent  with  the  religious  convictions  of  the  Brahmas — The 
sect  now  falls  back  upon  intuition  and  reason  —  Rules  for  the 
conduct  of  ceremonies — A  new  progressive  party  arises  under  the 
leadership  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen — Rupture  between  Progressives 
and  Conservatives  —  Two  distinct  societies  are  formed,  the  Adi 
Brahma  Samaj  and  the  Brahma  Samaj  of  India — History  of  Adi 
Brahma  Samaj  till  Debendra  Nath's  death  .  .  .110 


Section  III. — Eaely  Teoublbs  of  the  "Beahma  Samaj  of 
India" — Act  passed  by  Goveenment  to  legalise  Beahma 
Maebiages 

The  catholicity  of  the  Brahma  Samaj  of  India  indicated  by  the  use  of 
the  Scriptures  of  all  the  principal  religions — Keshub  visits  Simla 
on  business  —  Marriages  performed  according  to  the  rites  of  the 
sect  considered  invalid — Act  passed  by  the  Legislature  in  1872  to 
remove  difficulty— Effect  of  such  legislation  on  Hinduism  .     117 


Section  IV. — Keshub  Chundee  Sen  woeshipped  by  some 
Followees  —  His  Views  in  bespect  to  his  own  Mission  — 
Visit  to  England— Result 

Worship  of  Keshub  Chunder  by  certain  members  of  the  Samaj — Public 
protest  by  two  missionaries  of  the  sect — Keshub's  views  of  his 
own  mission  to  the  world  as  explained  in  his  public  utterances 
(1866-69)  —  His  hoped-for  synthesis  of  all  religions  —  Keshub 
visits  England  1870,  and  receives  a  most  flattering  reception — 
The  effect  produced  upon  his  mind  —  His  farewell  speech  at 
Southampton  contrasting  the  East  and  the  West  —  Effect  of 
Keshub's  English  experiences  on  his  character  and  actions  .     122 


Section  V.  —  Keshub  Chundee  Sen's  Peoceedings  which  lead 
to  a  New  Schism  and  the  Founding  of  the  "Sadhaean 
Beahma  Samaj" 

Keshub  establishes  various  institutions,  schools,  etc. — Opposes  the 
removal  of  the  purdah  during  divine  service  —  His  attitude 
towards  the  sex — Doctrine  of  adesh  or  special  inspiration — Keshub 
establishes  an  order  of  devotees  (1876) — Practises  Yoga  and 
neglects  practical  affairs — His  autocratic  methods  provoke  opposi- 
tion—  Marriage  of  his  daughter  at  a  premature  age  and  vnth 
Hindu  rites  leads  (May  1878)  to  another  schism  and  the  forma- 
tion of  the  Sadharan  Brahma  Samaj  ....     129 


CONTENTS 

Section  VI.  —  Keshub  believes  himself  to  be  a  Prophet  — 
Pboclaims  the  New  Dispensation — Its  Aims  and  Objects — 
Keshub's  Death  and  subsequent  History  of  the  Sect 

FAOK 

Keshub  believes  himself  to  be  a  prophet — His  views  with  respect  to 
Christ  and  Christianity — Declares  for  Pantheism — Recognises  in 
the  Supreme  Being  the  Mother  of  Mankind — Flag  processions  in 
honour  of  the  Divine  Mother — Proclaims  the  New  Dispensation — 
Countenances  Hindu  idolatry — Flag  of  the  New  Dispensation — 
Pilgrimage  to  an  imaginary  Jordan — Communion  with  departed 
saints  and  prophets  —  Celebrates  the  Eucharist  with  rice  and 
milk — The  object  and  aim  of  the  New  Dispensation — Theatrical 
exposition  of  the  new  cult — "Asia's  Message  to  Europe" — Keshub 
maintains  the  truth  of  all  established  religions  —  Idea  quite 
consistent  with  Hindu  sentiment,  but  alien  to  the  ideas  of  Jew, 
Christian,  and  Muslim — Keshub's  death — Estimate  of  his  character 
and  work — Later  history  of  the  Church  of  the  New  Dispensation  .     134 

Section  VII. — Summary  and  Conclusion 

Recapitulation — Results  of  seventy-five  years  of  theistic  agitation — 
How  far  are  the  conditions  prevailing  in  India  favourable  to  the 
establishment  of  a  new  religion  —  The  chances  of  a  stable  and 
enduring  cult  gro^\■ing  up  in  connection  with  Maharshi  Debendra 
Nath — Brahmaism  in  its  social  aspect — The  great  reaction  in 
favour  of  Hinduism — Relations  of  Christianity  and  Brahmaism — 
The  ascendancy  of  English  and  American  Unitarians  will  be  fatal 
to  Brahmaism  .  .  .  .  .  •  .     151 


CHAPTER  IV 

HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

Introduction  —  Forces  tending  to  bring  about  Changes   in 

Hindu  Social  Life  ......    158 

Section  I — Reformers  in  Council 

Many  forces  in  operation  tending  to  introduce  changes  in  Hindu 
social  life — Reformers  of  various  types — Much  shallow  criticism 
of  Hindu  customs  indulged  in  by  outsiders — Although  assailed 
from  many  quarters  the  fabric  of  Hindu  society  will  probably  long 
resist  such  attacks — Yet  important  modifications  are  inevitable     .     163 

Section  II. — A  Typical  Reformer — A  Yogi  Lecturer  on 
"How  to  make  a  dead  Man  alive" 

Description  of  the  Yogi  lecturer — His  lecture  and  its  peculiarities — 
His  quaint  and  instructive  parables  —  Temperance  societies  to 
be  found  throughout  India  and  follow  the  ordinary  methods  of 
combating  drink — A  case  of  worshipping  the  spirit  bottle — Tlie 
temperance  cnisade  helps  to  bring  Hindus,  Muslims,  and  Chris- 
tians together         .  .  .  .  .  .  .167 


CONTENTS 


Section  III. — Reform  of  Makriage  Customs'the  Special 
Aim  of  certain  Reformers 

PAQB 

Under  Hinduism  parents  are  bound  to  find  husbands  for  their 
daughters  —  The  lot  of  the  Hindu  widow  not  enviable  —  A 
Parsee  journalist  as  a  reformer  of  Hindu  domestic  life  —  His 
intervention  produces  a  long  and  bitter  controversy — The  case  of 
the  girl -wife  Rukhmabai — Summary  of  the  principal  facts  relating 
to  infant  marriage  and  enforced  ^^'idowhood  .  .  .     175 


Section  IV. — Infant  Marriage 

Infant  marriage  an  ancient  institution — Support  given  to  the  custom  . 
by  Hindu  codes  —  Present-day  reformers'  interpretations  of  old 
texts — Physiological  bearings  of  the  matter — Infant  marriage  in 
India  quite  a  different  thing  from  what  infant  marriage  would  be 
if  practised  in  Europe  —  Early  marriages  in  Europe  during  the 
Middle  Ages— Summary  of  the  causes  which  originated  and  have 
encouraged  the  custom  in  India — Evils  of  the  custom— Racial 
deterioration — The  custom  ensures  a  husband  to  every  girl  .     181 


Section  V. — Enforced  Widowhood 

Sati,  the  burning  of  a  widow  with  her  husband's  corpse,  a  very  old 
institution  in  India — An  alternative  of  humiliation  and  discom- 
fort offered  from  early  times  —  Sati  made  a  penal  offence  by 
British  Indian  law,  but  still  occasionally  carried  out  —  Some 
recent  cases  —  Widow  marriage  sanctioned  by  law — Calamity  of 
widowhood  usually  borne  as  a  decree  of  Fate — Some  mitigating 
circumstances  —  Widows  sometimes  driven  to  immoral  courses 
and  infanticide — A  "cold  Sati"  described — Origin  of  Sati — 
Promotion  of  widow  marriage  —  Permitted  in  certain  castes — 
Present  situation     .  .  .  .  .  .  .191 


Section  VI. — Temple  Women 

The  marrying  of  young  girls  to  Hindu  gods — Religious  prostitution 

in  India  explained  .......     200 


Section  VII. — The  Old  and  the  New  Woman 

Life  behind  the  purdah— Female  education  —  Women  advocates  of 
women's  rights  —  Pandita  Rama  Bai  —  Suggestion  that  Hindu 
widows  should  be  specially  trained  as  zenana  teachers — Attitude . 
of  Indian  men  towards  female  education — Immodest  bathing — 
Immoral  songs  at  weddings — Women's  dress — The  new  woman — 
The  future  .  . 203 


CONTENTS 

Section  VIIL— Social  Intercourse  between  Europeans 
AND  Natives 

PAQB 

All  concessions  towards  this  end  will  have  to  be  made  by  natives — 
Occasional  meetings  of  Em'opeans  and  natives  at  garden-parties, 
etc.  —  Indian  ladies  absent  from  such  gatherings  —  Intercourse 
between  Europeans  and  natives  in  connection  with  State  and 
commercial  business,  shikar,  sport,  and  freemasonry — Occasional 
visits  of  English  ladies  to  zenanas — No  real  desire  for  each  other's 
companionship  —  Officials  wisely  stand-offish  —  Free  social  inter- 
course a  very  far-off  possibility       .....     228 


PART  II 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  HOLI  FESTIVAL  IN  UPPER  INDIA 

Section  I.— Procession— Obscene  Exhibitions— Rites 
AND  Practices — Legends 
A  great  procession  through  the  streets — Ribald  songs  and  obscene 
exhibitions — Gods  in  the  train — All  classes  of  Hindus  witness  the 
show  with  apparent  appreciation — Underlying  causes — When  will 
it  all  cease  ? — Rites  and  practices  connected  with  Holi — Legendary 
explanations  .......     241 

Section  II. — The  Hola  of  the  Sikhs  (a.d.  1894) 
A  new  departure — The  presiunption  of  some  women  reproved  .  .     252 

Section  III.— Pawitra  Holi 

A  pure  Holi  introduced  recently  by  some  Indian  reformers,  backed  by 

Christian  missionaries         ......     256 

CHAPTER  II 

A  LUNAR  ECLIPSE  IN  INDIA 

Scene  at  the  Pool  of  Immortality — Hindu  legend  of  the  cause  of 
eclipses — Almsgiving — Progi-ess  of  obscuration — Legends  of  the 
pool — Dawn  .......     258 

CHAPTER  III 

ASHES  TO  ASHES 

Hindu  Funeral  Rites  and  their  underlying  Sentiments 
The  cremation  ground — How  a  Hindu  should  die — A  funeral  proces- 
sion— Explanations  of  certain  beliefs  about  pindas — Ceremonies  at 
the  gate — Wailings — Erection  of  the  pyre — The  last  farewell — 
Cremation  of  the  corpse — Post-funeral  ceremonies  and  the  beliefs 
underlying  them — Cremation  and  interment  contrasted     .  ,     264 


CONTENTS 

PART  III 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  MUHARRAM  IN  INDIA 

Section  I. — The  Historical  Basis  of  the  Great 
Celebration 

PAGE 

Why  the  Muharram  deserves  attention — The  triumphs  of  Islam — 
Principal  sects,  Shiahs  and  Sunnis — Indian  Muslims — Muharram, 
a  Shiah  celebration — Historical  events  on  which  the  Muharram  is 
based,  including  the  slaughter  of  Imam  Husain  and  his  followers 
at  Karbala — The  Shiah  religious  and  mystical  interpretations  of 
this  tragic  event      .......     279 

Section  IL — The  Passion  Play  of  Hasan  and  Husain 
Its  scope,  object,  and  peculiarities         .....     290 

Section  III. — Open-air  Ceremonies 

Bonfires  —  Marriage  processions  —  Tabuts  or  Tazias  —  The  Duldul — 

Karbala       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .296 

Section  IV.— A  Tale  of  Muharram  Rivalries    .  .  .807 

CHAPTER  II 

FAQUIRS 

Legends  and  Stories  of  Muslim  Saints  and  Religious 
Devotees  both  Ancient  and  Modern 

Introduction — A  legend  of  Baba  Farid — Baba  Jungu  Shah,  a  Punjab 
saint — The  Khazanah- Wallah  Faquir — Adventures  of  a  pseudo- 
faquir — Influence  of  faquirs  in  secular  affairs — A  Syad's  fire-bath 
— The  faquir  of  Manasbal — The  name  of  God        .  .  .311 


Index 333 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


Beahman  at  Prayer      ..... 

Foe  the  Goddess  Kali  .... 

Bathing  in  the  Rivee  at  Kali-Ghat 

Beahman  at  Peayer      .... 

The  Beahmo  Mandie      .... 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen     .... 

The  Public-House  .... 

The  New  Style— "Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen 

The  Shameful  Results  of  Intempeeance 

The  Holi  Peocession  in  Lahoee 

Golden  Temple  and  Sacred  Tank,  Amritsar 

Bathees  in  the  River  Ravi  during  an  Eclipse  of 
THE  Sun         ..... 

Burning  Ghat,  Benares 

Funeral  Pyre  referred  to  in  the  Text 

Tombs  in  Cremation  Ground  referred  to  in  Text 

A  Tazia  Procession        .... 

The  Mosque  of  the  Great  Imambara,  Lucknow 

A  Tazia  belonging  to  a  Guild  of  Butchers 

A  Faquir  from  the  Frontier  . 

The  Faquir  of  Manasbal 


Frontispiece 

.     Page  3 

Facing    ,,  6 

.       .,  34 

.       „  99 

Facing    ,,  134 

.       „  158 

Facing    „  160 

„  172 

,,  241 

.       „  258 

Facing    ,,  262 

.       „  264 

Facing    „  272 

.       „  276 

.       „  279 

Facing    „  290 

„  300 

.       „  311 

Facing    „  329 


Vn 


PART    I 

KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM  (GODDESS-WOESHIP) 
IN  BENGAL 

CASTE  IN  INDIA 

THEISM  IN  BENGAL  (BEAHMAISM) 

HINDU  SOCIAL  EEFOEMEES 


KALI-(3MAT  amd 
MIMDUI5/A  -ih 
BChGAL  - 


*'^OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTER   I 

KALI-GHAT  AND 
HINDUISM  IN 
BENGAL 

Section  I.— Visit  to 
the  temple  —  The 
Kali  cultas  — 
Bloody  sacrifices — 
Legends  of  the 
goddess  and  her 
temple  —  Subordi- 
nate temples. 

ALCUTTA,  with 
its  showy 
palaces  and  its 
mean  huts,  its 
fleets  of  stately 
ships  from  Europe, 
and  its  lumbering 
country  boats  for 
traflGic  on  the 
Hugli;  Calcutta 
with  its  bazaars 
and  marts  had,  for 
years,  been  well 
known  to  me. 
Fort  William,  re- 
miniscent of  the 
early  days  of 
British  ascend- 
ancy in  Bengal, 
was  indelibly  as- 
sociated in  my 
recollections  with 
the  incidents  of 
"Panic  Sunday" 
in  the  trying  days 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

of  '57.  The  Cathedral  on  the  spacious  maidan,  and  other 
churches  of  the  great  city,  were  connected  in  my  mind  with 
many  pleasant  memories.  Near  the  little  mosque,  sur- 
mounted by  a  dozen  minarets  with  gilded  finials,  situated 
at  the  corner  of  the  Esplanade,  I  had  often  paused  to  watch 
the  devout  Muslim  prostrate  himself  in  worship  of  Allah. 
But  Kali-Ghat,  the  world-famous  temple  near  Calcutta,  I 
had  not  seen  until,  after  years  of  absence  from  the  Indian 
Metropolis,  a  brief  sojourn  there  was  turned  to  account  in 
a  visit  to  the  shrine. 

By  the  tramway  was  for  me  the  most  convenient  way 
to  Kali-Ghat.  A  ride  of  over  three  miles  with  a  number  of 
perspiring  and  somnolent  Bengali  companions  brought  me 
to  the  limit  of  the  tramway  line,  where  I  alighted  in  a 
crowded  suburb  of  thatched  cottages  embosomed  in  the 
exuberant  foliage  of  Lower  Bengal,  made  up  of  graceful 
palm  trees,  broad-leaved  plantains,  slender  bamboos,  and 
close-foliaged  tamarinds.  By  tropical  sunlight  such  greenery 
affords  pictures  of  rare  beauty,  and  after  dark  is  often 
simply  gorgeous  with  the  living  lamps  of  myriads  of  fire- 
flies, fluttering  hither  and  thither  in  a  sort  of  fairy  revel. 

The  small  huts  amidst  the  verdure,  the  homes  of  so 
many  millions  of  people  in  Bengal,  have  some  peculi- 
arities which  can  hardly  fail  to  attract  the  attention  of  the 
European  observer,  and  may  detain  us  a  moment  because  of 
their  connection  with  the  style  of  the  temple  architecture 
of  Bengal,  and  as  an  interesting  instance  of  the  way  in 
which  physical  conditions  influence  national  types  of  archi- 
tecture. Of  these  huts  the  more  rigid  portions  of  the 
roofs,  the  roof -frames  in  fact,  are  made  of  the  exceedingly 
strong,  but  very  pliable,  bamboo,  of  which  an  abundant 
supply  is  always  available  in  Eastern  India.  To  give  this 
material  suSicient  strength  to  bear  a  transverse  strain,  it 
must  be  arched,  hence  the  ridge  pole,  the  hips  and  also  the 
eaves  of  the  cottages  are  all  curved  outwards.  The  effect 
of  this  mode  of  construction  is,  in  the  case  of  neatly 
thatched  dwellings  of  modest  dimensions  undoubtedly 
pleasing ;  but  when  the  style  is  copied  in  brick  or  stone,  it 
is  by  no  means  agreeable,  though  the  favour  it  has  gained  in 
Hindustan  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  it  has  found 

4 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM   IN  BENGAL 

its  way  from  Bengal  as  far  west  as  Delhi  and  Lahore,  and 
even  Kashmir.^ 

From  the  tramway  terminus  to  the  temple  I  had  to 
walk.  My  mere  inquiry  about  the  way  to  Kali-Ghat 
collected  round  me  a  crowd  of  men  and  women,  who  accom- 
panied me  with  evident  curiosity  to  the  shrine  of  their 
favourite  and  highly  honoured  goddess  Kali-Ma  (Mother 
KaU). 

La  a  few  minutes  I  found  my  way  into  a  paved  court- 
yard surrounded  by  a  high  brick  wall,  and  stood  before  an 
unimportant-looking  building,  said  to  be  three  hundred  years 
old,  which  was  nothing  but  a  reproduction  in  brickwork 
and  lime-plaster  of  the  huts  I  have  just  described.  There 
were  in  the  temple  before  me  the  same  characteristic  curved 
ridges  and  eaves -lines  already  alluded  to.  In  fact  it 
resembled  in  form  a  rather  tall  Bengali  hut  with  another 
much  smaller  one  of  the  same  kind  surmounting  it;  this 
addition  being  designed  to  give  a  decent  elevation  to  the 
structure.  Such  was  the  famous  temple  of  Kali-Ghat  which 
I  had  gone  out  to  see.  Its  interest  for  Hindus  centres  in 
the  ill-lighted  chamber,  the  cella,  wherein  the  presiding 
divinity,  housed  in  mysterious  twilight,  receives  the  adora- 
tion of  her  awed  votaries.  No  provision  is  made  here  for 
congregational  worship,  which  is  quite  unknown  and  un- 
thought  of  amongst  Hindus;  though  recently  it  has  come 
into  fashion  with  the  small  theistic  sects  called  into  existence 
by  Western  influences. 

Close  by  the  temple  on  the  south  side  stands  an  open 
pavilion  or  detached  portico  of  moderate  dimensions,  for  the 
convenience  of  the  Brahmans  and  for  visitors  to  the  place ; 
and  there  are  some  small  buildings  for  the  accommodation 
of  the  temple  priests  and  attendants.  Near  the  pavilion, 
on  the  side  farthest  from  the  shrine,  is  t?ie  place  of  sacrifices, 
with  its  repulsive  stakes  all  crimsoned  with  the  blood  of 
many  victims.  On  the  eastern  side  of  the  temple  is  a 
sacred  pond  known  as  Kundoo,  and  at  a  short  distance 
towards  the  west  flows  ToUy's  nullah,  a  smaU  tidal  river 
connected  with  the  Hugli.  To  this  stream,  held  sacred  as 
being  one  of  the  original  channels  of  the  Ganges,  there  is  a 

^  Dr.  Fergusson,  History  of  Indian  and  Eastern  Architecture,  p.  548. 

5 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

direct  road,  between  rows  of  little  shops,  leading  from  the 
temple  gate  to  the  bathing  ghat  on  the  river. 

An  interesting  and  highly  characteristic  feature  of  Kali's 
temple  is  the  number  of  shrines  of  other  deities  clustered 
about  it,  in  architectural  subordination  it  is  true,  but  still 
challenging  recognition,  adoration,  and  offerings.  To  this 
point  I  shall  revert  later. 

Observing  with    critical    eyes    Kali's   famous    temple, 
which  enjoys  an  immense  reputation  in  India,  I  could  not 
help   asking  myself  how  far   one   could   reasonably  draw 
inferences  regarding  the  spirituahty,  the  piety,  the  liberality, 
and  largeness  of  conception  of  peoples  and  nations  from  the 
dimensions,  arrangements,  and  architectural  styles  of  their 
temples.     A  comparison  of  the  Mandir  of  Kali-Ma  near 
Calcutta   with   the   shapely   Parthenon  adorned   with   the 
highest  efforts  of  Greek  plastic  art,  or  the  noble  Pantheon 
of  pagan  Rome  with  its  majestic  dome  ever  open  to  the  sky, 
or  the  stately  mediaeval  cathedral  with  "its  long  drawn 
aisles  and  fretted  vaults,"  or    the  grand   Musjids  of   the 
Muslims   with    their  graceful    minarets,   would  no   doubt 
sadly  discredit  Bengali  ideals  and  artistic  conceptions.    Nor 
would   Kali-Ghat   bear   comparison   with    Hindu    temples 
elsewhere  in  India,  and  especially  those  impressive  monu- 
ments characteristic  of  the  Southern  Peninsula.    Yet  religion, 
the  whole-hearted  desire  to  reach  towards  God  and  live  in 
the  divine  presence,  is  not  necessarily  associated  with  the 
stately  products  of  artistic  genius  which  have  been  rendered 
possible   only   through   the  lavish  munificence  of  opulent 
States  or  rich  individuals.     Possibly  the  reverse  might  be 
true,  and  superb  ecclesiastical  edifices  be  characteristic  more 
of  cultured  wealth   than   of   earnest   rehgion.     Any  way 
physical  conditions  and   environments  ^re  very  dominant 
factors  in  such  cases,  for,  all  things  considered,  it  is  hardly 
conceivable  that  a  York  Minster  or  a  St.  Mark's  could  be 
raised  by  men  born  and  nurtured  generation  after  generation 
on  the  low  alluvial  plains  and  amidst  the  rank  vegetation 
of  moist  and  enervating  Bengal.     Moreover,  the  absence  of 
stone  in  the   Gangetic   delta  is   undoubtedly  a  very  real 
drawback  to  the  development  of  a  stately  and  imposing  style 
of  architecture,  though  what  can  be  done  without  stone  is 

6 


KALI-GHAT  AND   HINDUISM   IN  BENGAL 

apparent  in  many  European  cities,  —  the  "Westminster 
Cathedral  being  the  latest  and  perhaps  best  example.  Even 
in  India  the  architectural  features  of  Calcutta  developed 
upon  European  lines,  and  the  huge,  not  ungraceful  pucca 
buildings,  which  adorn  the  Muhammadan  city  of  Lucknow 
show,  clearly  enough,  the  potentialities  of  brick  construc- 
tion. Not  Bengali  architecture  alone,  however,  owes  its 
peculiarities  to  the  climatic  and  geological  conditions  of  the 
land,  for  the  sensitive  and  sensual  character  of  the  people, 
who  are  not  Aryans  but  of  Mongolo-Dravidian  race,  also 
bears  an  unmistakable  relation  to  the  warm,  damp  climate 
and  prolific  soil  of  their  country. 

To  return  to  the  temple  after  this  digression.  The  door 
of  the  shrine  itself  was  not  open  when  I  arrived  before  it, 
and  several  officious  men,  clothed  merely  in  the  usual  dhoty 
or  loin-cloth,  with  nothing  but  the  sacred  cotton  thread  of 
six  strands  as  a  garment  for  the  person  above  the  waist, 
offered  to  conduct  me  over  the  courtyard.  They  were 
hereditary  priests,  each  entitled  to,  and  eager  for,  his  share 
of  the  profits  of  the  establishment.  There  was  really  very 
little  for  these  worthies  to  show  the  visitor,  and  when  they 
had  drawn  attention  to  the  places  in  the  enclosure  set  apart 
for  animal  sacrifices,  indicated  too  obviously  by  the  forked 
stakes,  to  which  the  victims  are  secured,  their  duty  as  guides 
seemed  over.  At  these  sacrificial  spots  on  the  great  annual 
festival  of  the  goddess,  and  on  certain  other  and  not  infre- 
quent occasions  when  rich  worshippers  visit  the  temple, 
goats,  sheep,  and  bufialoes  are  sacrificed  in  hecatombs,  their 
blood  flowing  like  water  before  the  shrine  of  the  goddess, 
for  she  delights  in  animal  sacrifices,  and,  as  certain  Hindu 
scriptures  affirm,  "  constantly  drinks  blood."  ^  Neither  the 
bull  nor  the  cow  are  of  course  ever  offered  here,  these 
animals  being  considered  sacred  by  all  Hindus  throughout 
India.  Although  my  visit  was  not  on  a  feast  or  festival 
day,  there  was  ample  gory  evidence  of  the  sacrificial  activity 
of  the  priests  of  Kali,  whose  predecessors,  only  a  few  genera- 
tions back,  immolated  human  victims,  the  traditions  of 
these  sacrifices  being  still  religiously  preserved  in  many  old 

^  Taniras.     See  Sir  Monier  Williams,  Religious  TTioughts  aiid  Life  in 
India,  p.  189. 

7 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

Bengali  families  in  which,  on  the  occasions  of  the  Kali  and 
Durga  festivals,  effigies  are  offered  up  in  lieu  of  living  men.^ 
"  But  for  us,"  writes  Sir  John  Strachey, "  even  in  the  province 
where  education  has  made  its  greatest  progress,  Kali  would 
still  claim  her  human  victims.  Not  many  years  ago,  in  a 
time  of  drought,  near  a  railway  station  twenty-five  miles 
from  Calcutta,  a  human  head  was  found  before  her  idol 
decked  with  flowers,  and  in  another  temple  in  Bengal,  a 
boy  was  savagely  murdered  and  offered  to  the  goddess."  ^ 
So  recently  as  June  1901  an  attempt  was  made  by  one 
Gajadhur  to  sacrifice  a  man  at  Akhra,  near  Calcutta,  before 
a  newly  made  idol  of  Kali.^ 

Hinduism  is  associated,  in  the  minds  of  so  many  in 
Europe,  and  even  in  India,  with  the  idea  of  the  most 
scrupulous  tenderness  towards  all  animated  things — "the 
mild  Hindu"  is  so  proverbial  a  figure  of  speech — that  it 
somewhat  staggers  one  to  walk  about  the  shambles  of  a 
temple  like  this,  and  hear  the  boastful  Brahman  slaughter- 
man regret  that  you  had  not  the  good  fortune  of  seeing  the 
place  on  a  gala  day,  adorned  with  its  holiday  carpets  of  red. 
So  many  centuries  separate  us  from  the  sacrificial  system  of 
the  Hebrews  whose  spiritual  descendants  we  are,  and  we 
have  become  so  oblivious  of  the  bloody  sacrifices  of  our  Norse 
ancestors,  that  we  almost  fail  to  realise  the  aims  and  effects 
of  such  a  system  until  we  are  thus  confronted  with  pools  of 
the  warm  blood  of  animals  killed  to  propitiate  the  arbiters 
of  man's  destiny. 

The  flesh  of  a  number  of  the  victims  slain  daily  at 
Kali-Ghat  is  sold  for  the  ordinary  consumption  of  the 
orthodox  Hindu,  and  as  the  business  is  a  profitable  one,  a 
regular  charge  being  levied  by  the  priests  for  each  animal 
killed  within  the  sacred  courts  of  the  temple,  rival  shrines 
have  been  set  up  in  several  parts  of  Calcutta  to  meet  the 

*  Dr.  Rajendra  Lalla  Mitra,  Iindo- Aryans,  vol.  ii.  p.  109. 

*  Sir  John  Strachey,  India,  p.  354. 

The  Kalika  Purana  says :  "  The  flesh  of  the  antelope  and  the  rhinoceros 
give  my  beloved  (Kali)  delights  for  five  hundred  years.  By  a  human 
sacrifice,  attended  by  the  forms  laid  down,  Devi  is  pleased  for  a  thousand 
years,  and  by  the  sacrifice  of  three  men,  a  hundred  thousand  years." — Rev. 
J.  W.  Wilkins,  Hindu  Mythology,  p.  262. 

*  Civil  and  Military  Gazette  (Lahore),  3rd  July  1901. 

8 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM   IN  BENGAL 

demand,  apparently  an  increasing  one,  for  sanctified  hutcJiers' 
tneat} 

Before  the  closed  door  of  the  temple  I  waited  a  long 
time  to  have  a  glance  of  the  interior  and  of  the  dread 
occupant,  who,  I  recalled  to  mind,  was  the  patron  goddess 
of  that  nefarious  sect  of  assassins,  the  well-known  Thugs  of 
India,  and  of  thieves  and  robbers  of  all  kinds,  some  of  whom 
might,  for  all  I  knew  to  the  contrary,  have  been  present  there 
that  morning,  paying  their  respects  to  their  grim  protectress. 

A  partial  opening  of  the  door  induced  me  to  press 
forward,  and  a  hint,  not  difficult  to  understand,  made  me 
throw  some  small  silver  coins  towards  the  officiating  janitor, 
who  could,  if  so  minded,  affijrd  me  a  better  view  of  the 
image  of  the  goddess.  Hardly  had  the  little  shining  pieces 
of  British  money  rung  out  their  true  tones  on  the  floor 
outside  the  temple  door,  when,  to  my  great  surprise,  the 
space  near  the  entrance,  in  view  of  the  great  goddess 
herself,  became  the  scene  of  an  animated  and  most  unseemly 
struggle.  Some  girls  were  amongst  the  first  to  get  posses- 
sion of  the  bright  pieces  as  they  clinked  upon  the  floor,  but 
in  the  strife  with  the  angry  covetous  Brahmans,  they  soon 
lost  them,  although  they  fought  and  struggled  on  the 
ground  like  little  furies.  One  rather  pretty  girl  of  about 
eleven  or  twelve  years  of  age,  of  slight  and  graceful  figure, 
dressed  in  the  national  saree  of  thin  musUn,  had  had  her 
delicate  wrist  cut  with  her  bangles  in  the  indecorous  battle 
I  had  unintentionally  raised.  Showing  me  the  bleeding 
wound,  she  insisted  upon  baksheesh.  Not  a  moment's  peace 
would  she  give  me.  Her  blood  was  evidently  upon  my  head, 
and  nothing  but  baksheesh  could  wash  the  stains  away. 
The  little  martyr's  persistence,  aided  perhaps  by  her  good 
looks,  secured  for  her  what  she  wanted,  but  immediately 
gave  rise  to  a  chorus  of  petitions  from  many  bystanders, 
which,  needless  to  say,  received  the  attention  it  deserved. 

After  the  struggle  was  over,  I  got  a  glimpse  of  the 
goddess  from  a  short  distance  through  the  doorway ;  but  as 
a  large  crowd  had  been  gathered  by  the  expectation  of  more 
largesse,  I  was  not  encouraged  to  make  a  nearer  scrutiny  of 
the  idol.  However,  I  had  not  lost  much  in  getting  only  an 
'  Shib  Cbunder  Bose,  The  Hindoos  as  tJiey  are,  p.  148. 

9 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF  INDIA 

imperfect  view  of  Kali  in  her  gloomy  temple,  for  the 
horrific  figure  of  the  goddess  is  a  familiar  one  to  every 
resident  in  Bengal,  and  I  knew  it  well,  having  seen  it  on  a 
hundred  occasions.  Moreover,  it  is  a  form  to  be  remembered 
for  its  grotesque  and  startling  ugliness, — a  hideous  black 
woman  enjoying  the  possession  of  no  less  than  four  well- 
developed  arms,  and  with  a  huge  pointed  blood-red  tongue 
hanging  out  of  her  mouth.  In  one  hand  she  holds  a 
drawn  sword,  in  another  the  severed  head  of  a  mighty 
giant,  while  the  other  two  hands  are  supposed  to  be 
engaged  in  welcoming  and  blessing  her  votaries.  Thus 
in  her  visible  manifestation  does  the  goddess  unite  her 
attributes  of  avenger  and  protector  of  her  people. 

Such  then,  in  outward  semblance,  is  the  Goddess  Kali 
of  the  Bengalis.  Sometimes  she  is  represented  standing 
with  one  foot  planted  on  the  breast  and  the  other  upon 
the  thigh  of  her  prostrate  husband,  the  great  God  Siva. 
When  so  depicted,  her  girdle  (she  has  no  other  covering 
for  her  person)  consists  of  the  severed  hands  of  her  defeated 
foes.  For  ornament  the  terrible  being  wears  a  necklace  of 
the  heads  of  giants  whom  she  had  slain,  and  whose  warm 
blood  she  had  actually  quafl'ed  in  savage  delight.  Her  ear- 
rings are  the  dead  bodies  of  her  slaughtered  enemies.  Such 
is  this  terrible  object  of  adoration !  who  in  this  form  appears 
to  her  worshippers  as  the  very  embodiment  of  power,  and 
to  whom  her  trustful,  if  timid  votaries,  appeal  for  brave 
hearts  and  martial  ardour.  In  the  Mahabharata,  Arjuna, 
acting  on  the  advice  of  Krishna,  offers  a  special  prayer  for 
success  to  Kali,  the  "giver  of  victory," ^  and  similar  in- 
vocations are  still  addressed  to  her,  though  by  less  formidable 
persons  than  that  famous  son  of  Kunti.  Only  a  few  years 
ago,  a  Hindu  vernacular  paper  made  the  following  sad  and 
significant  appeal  to  the  goddess : — 

"  0,  Mother,  behold,  we  are  fallen.  We  have  been 
deprived  of  our  old  martial  spirit.  Thy  sons  are  now 
a  pack  of  arrant  cowards,  trampled  under  the  shoes  of 
the  Mlechchas^  and  so  dispirited  as  to  lose  all  sense 
when  angrily  stared  at   by   them.     Thou  art   power 

^  Mahabharata — Bhisma  Parva,  Section  xxiii. 
'  A  contemptuous  term  applied  to  Europeans  and  other  barbarians. 

lO 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM  IN  BENGAL 

perfected.  How  canst  thou  tolerate  such  emasculation 
of  thy  dear  sons  ?  0,  Mother,  take  pity  on  India,  and 
infuse  the  timid  souls  of  thy  children  with  the  force  of 
thy  invincible  power."  ^ 

No  one  can  tell  in  what  age  it  was  that  divinity  revealed 
itself  to  the  spiritual  vision  of  some  aboriginal  or  Dravidian 
seer  in  the  grotesque  form  of  Mother  Kali,  nor  does  any 
record  exist  regarding  the  audacious  hand  that  first  modelled, 
in  the  plastic  clay  of  Bengal,  those  awful  features  which 
have  so  strange  a  fascination  for  the  children  of  the  soil, 
crudely  embodying  in  visible  form  the  very  real  dread  of 
femininity  always  working  in  the  minds  of  a  most  sensuous 
people,  too  prone  to  fall  before  the  subtle  powers  of  the 
weaker  sex.  This,  however,  we  may  boldly  affirm,  that  the 
events  we  refer  to  occurred  long  ages  ago.  And  it  is  only 
reasonable  to  believe  that  the  strange  shapes  of  Kali,  and 
some  other  gods  and  goddesses  of  the  Hindus,  must  have  an 
immense  antiquity,  must,  in  fact,  date  back  to  primeval 
times,  and  may  be  regarded  as  only  the  fantastic  shadows  of 
divinity,  seen  by  the  untutored  savage  in  the  dim  twilight  of 
the  world's  morning. 

For  those  who  delight  in  explanations  of  religious 
mythological  fancies,  the  following  will  have  interest :  "  In 
India,  however,  as  in  the  Western  world,  there  was  a 
constant  tendency  to  convert  names  into  persons,  and  then 
to  frame  for  them  a  mythical  history  in  accordance  with 
their  meaning.  Thus  two  of  the  ever-flickering  tongues  of 
the  black-pathed  Agni  were  called  Kali  the  black,  and 
Karali  the  terrific ;  and  these  became  names  of  Durga,  the 
wife  of  Siva,  who  was  developed  out  of  Agni !  and  a  bloody 
sacrificial  worship  was  the  result."  ^ 

How  simple  all  this  appears.    But  is  it  really  true  ? 

That,  as  in  Kali's  case,  one  of  the  highest  and  most 
respected  deities  of  the  Hindu  Pantheon  should  have  a 
monstrous  form,  is  at  least  noteworthy.  The  Teutonic  gods, 
though  sometimes  maimed,  as  the  one-eyed  Odin,  or  the 
limping  Loki,  are  by  no  means  monstrous.    Amongst  the 

^  Reproduced  in  the  Civil  and  Military  Oazette  (Lahore),  25th  December 
1890. 

*  Cox,  Mythology  of  the  Aryan  Nations,  p.  421. 

II 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

Greeks  the  shapeless  wooden  xoana  which  were  amongst  the 
earliest  objects  of  worship,  made  way,  at  a  comparatively 
early  period,  for  higher  artistic  conceptions.  It  is  true  that 
terrible  forms  like  that  of  the  Artemis  of  Pellene  were  not 
unknown,  but  curiously  enough  some  mythologists  find  the 
same  Artemis  to  be  no  other  than  Kali  herself,  and  believe, 
or  imagine,  they  can  trace  the  dread  goddess  of  Bengal 
through  Asia  Minor  and  Greece  to  Imperial  Eome.^ 

After  the  description  I  have  given  of  the  personal 
appearance  of  Kali,  it  is  time  to  record  what  is  taught 
regarding  this  embodiment  of  female  prepotency,  who 
commands  the  homage  of  so  many  millions  of  men.  With 
respect  to  her  recognition  as  a  Hindu  divinity,  I  think  it 
may  be  assumed  without  rashness  that  the  shrewd  and 
politic  Brahmanical  priesthood,  finding  in  their  progress 
eastwards  the  ever  mysterious  Kali,  a  predominant  power  in 
the  archaic  religion  of  the  aborigines  of  Eastern  India,  made 
a  place  for  her  in  their  great  pantheon,  and,  as  a  consequence, 
the  Hindu  shastras  under  the  deft  hands  of  wily  Brahmans 
soon  contained  ample  evidence  that  the  great  goddess  of 
Bengal  was  of  the  very  first  rank,  being  indeed  the  wife  of 
the  great  God  Siva.  This  process  of  adopting  local  gods  and 
naturalising  them  as  it  were  in  the  existing  Pantheon,  has 
been,  and  still  is,  a  process  famiHar  to  Hinduism,  and  goes 
far  to  explain  the  heterogeneous  character  of  the  divinities 
who  are  revered  by  the  Hindus. 

In  the  repulsive  form  in  which  Kali  is  worshipped,  she 
is  said  to  have  successfully  rid  the  universe  of  a  dangerous 
giant,  whom  she  overthrew  in  a  terrific  conflict,  wherein  the 
victorious  goddess,  carried  away  by  the  excitement  of  battle, 
indulged  in  an  excess  of  reckless  and  ungovernable  fury. 
After  her  victory  she  danced  in  such  a  frantic  way  that  the 
earth  itself  was  in  danger  from  her.  Siva  tried  to  calm  her 
frenzy,  but  failing  in  his  object  threw  himself  down  on  the 
ground  amongst  her  slain  enemies.  Presently  Kali  found 
him  under  her  feet.  Eecognising  her  lord,  she  protruded 
her  long  tongue  in  astonishment,  after  the  manner  of  Indian  - 
women,  and  immediately  desisted  from  her  mad  dance  of 
triumph,  which  had  threatened  to  shake  the  world  to  its 

1  C.  W.  King,  The  Gnostics  and  their  Remains,  pp.  165-172. 
12 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM   IN  BENGAL 

foundations.  This  is  the  commonly  accepted  legend  ex- 
plaining the  attitude  of  Kali  standing  upon  the  prostrate 
body  of  her  husband;  but  a  learned  Brahman  writer,  Dr. 
J.  N.  Bhattacharjee,  says^  that  the  true  esoteric  explana- 
tion, to  be  found  in  the  scriptures  known  as  the  Tantras, 
is  something  very  different  and  too  obscene  for  possible 
explanation.  Well  did  Edgar  Quinet  write:  "Ne  croyez 
pas,  en  effet,  connaitre  un  peuple  si  vous  n'etes  remonte 
jusqu'a  ses  dieux."  ^ 

It  is  a  significant  and  noteworthy  circumstance  that 
Kali's  gigantic  and  audacious  opponent,  like  a  host  of 
others  figuring  in  Indian  mythology,  was,  according  to  the 
Brahmans,  an  ascetic  who  had  acquired  by  the  practice  of 
severe  austerities  and  the  performance  of  suitable  ceremonies, 
a  degree  of  power  which  made  him  an  object  of  terror  to  the 
gods  of  the  very  highest  rank  in  the  Olympus  of  the  Hindus. 

Some  reason  must  needs  exist  or  be  invented  to  account 
for  the  special  claims  to  sanctity  of  the  temple  at  Kali- 
Ghat.  A  suitable  legend  is,  indeed,  indispensable  in  such  a 
case.  One  such,  which,  weird  and  grotesque  in  the  extreme, 
amply  fulfils  all  requirements,  is  narrated  by  Dr.  Alexander 
Duff,  the  famous  Free  Kirk  missionary  of  Bengal.  The 
legend  in  question,  derived  no  doubt  from  satisfactory  local 
sources,  is  as  follows : — 

"  Brahma,  it  would  appear,  in  his  earthly  form  or 
incarnation  of  Daksha,  had  a  daughter  named  Sati, 
who  was  given  in  marriage  to  Shiva.  On  one  occasion 
a  quarrel  arose  between  Daksha  and  Shiva.  The 
former  then  refused  to  invite  his  son-in-law  to  a 
splendid  banquet  which  he  resolved  to  give  in  honour 
of  the  immortals.  To  this  insulting  slight  he  also 
added  the  foulest  reproach — stigmatising  Shiva  as  a 
wandering  mendicant,  a  delighter  in  cemeteries,  and  a 
bearer  of  skulls.  On  hearing  her  husband  thus  reviled, 
Sati,  overwhelmed  with  grief  and  sorrow,  hastily  re- 
turned to  the  banks  of  the  Ganges,  and  there  determined 
to  yield  up  her  life  *  on  the  altar  of  domestic  affliction.' 
This,  we  may  remark  in  passing,  is  the  divine  example 
constantly  held  forth  for  imitation  to  poor  widows, 
who  are  greatly  stimulated  thereby  to  become  Satis  or 

^  Hindu  Castea  and  Sects,  p.  408.  '  Le  g&nie  cUs  Beligions,  p.  12. 

13 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

Suttees,  by  sacrificing  themselves  on  the  funeral  piles 
of  their  husbands,  Shiva,  on  observing  the  lifeless 
form  of  his  spouse,  became  quite  distracted.  In  the 
bitterness  of  his  anguish,  he  thrust  his  trident  through 
the  dead  body,  and  lifting  it  in  the  air,  commenced 
dancing  about  in  the  most  frantic  manner.  By  the 
violence  of  his  aerial  motions,  the  three  worlds  were 
shaken  to  the  foundations.  Gods  and  men  were  filled 
with  alarm.  Vishnu,  the  Preserver,  hastened  to  arrest 
the  threatened  catastrophe.  Shedding  tears  of  sym- 
pathy, he  endeavoured  to  console  the  frenzied  husband, 
by  reminding  him  that  'nothing  was  real'  in  this 
world,  but  that  everything  was  altogether  may  a,  or 
illusion.  But  Shiva's  grief  was  too  poignant  to  yield 
to  any  consolation  based  on  a  cold  metaphysical  ab- 
straction. As  he  continued  to  reel  in  agony,  he  burst 
into  a  flood  of  tears ;  and  these  uniting  with  the  sym- 
pathetic tears  of  Vishnu,  formed  a  capacious  lake, 
which  afterwards  became  a  celebrated  place  of  pilgrim- 
age. Still  he  was  utterly  inconsolable.  At  length  the 
Preserver  shrewdly  conjectured  that  were  the  object 
of  his  grief  removed  out  of  view,  calmness  would  be 
restored  to  his  agitated  soul.  Accordingly,  armed  with 
a  scimitar,  he  continued  as  the  body  was  whirling 
round  to  cut  off  one  limb  after  the  other.  The  different 
members,  as  they  were  successively  severed — from  the 
projectile  force  impressed  on  them  by  Shiva's  violent 
movement — were  scattered  to  different  and  distant  parts 
of  the  earth.  In  the  excess  of  his  distraction,  the 
bereaved  husband  discovered  not  his  loss  till  the  whole 
body  had  disappeared.  His  grief  was  then  assuaged, 
and  the  universe  delivered  from  impending  destruction. 
Soon  after  his  beloved  Sati  reappeared,  but  in  a  new 
form,  announcing  that  she  had  happily  been  born  again, 
as  the  daughter  of  Himavan  or  Himalaya,  the  ruler  of 
mountains.  In  this  form  she  became  known  as  Parvati 
(from  Parva,  the  ordinary  term  for  mountain) — insepar- 
able companion  of  Shiva. 

"  In  the  meantime,  the  scattered  fragments  of  Sati's 
body — amounting  together  with  the  ornaments  to  the 
exact  number  of  fifty-one — conferred  peculiar  sanctity 
on  the  places  where  they  happened  to  fall.  All  of 
these  were  consecrated  as  repositories  of  the  divine 
remains,  and  adoration  there  became  an  act  of  extra- 
ordinary merit.  At  each,  a  temple  was  reared  and 
14 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM  IN  BENGAL 

dedicated  to  the  goddess,  and  in  it  was  placed  an  image 
representing  one  or  other  of  her  thousand  forms ;  along 
with  an  image  of  her  husband  Shiva,  under  the  designa- 
tion of  Bhairob,  or  fear-inspirer,  in  which  capacity  he 
acts  as  guardian  or  protector  of  the  place ;  and  is  always 
worshipped  at  the  same  time  as  his  spouse. 

"  The  toes  of  the  right  foot  of  the  goddess  are  said 
to  have  fallen  a  little  to  the  south  of  Calcutta,  on  the 
banks  of  one  of  the  cross  branches  of  the  Ganges — 
supposed  to  have  been  once  the  channel  of  the  main 
stream  itself.  There  they  were  buried  in  the  earth, 
unsubjected  to  corruption  or  decay.  The  sacred  spot, 
though  illumined  with  beams  of  resplendent  light, 
remained  for  ages  undiscovered  in  the  deepest  recess 
of  the  forest.  At  length,  in  the  vision  of  a  dream,  the 
site  was  made  known  by  the  goddess  herself  to  a  holy 
Brahman.  Moved  and  directed  by  the  heavenly  oracle, 
he  lost  no  time  in  raising  a  temple  over  the  divine 
deposit.  The  temple,  by  express  revelation,  was  dedi- 
cated to  the  goddess  under  her  form  of  Kali ;  and  has 
ever  since  been  famed  under  the  designation  of  Kah- 
Ghat."i 

In  one  of  those  eloquent  sermons  for  which  he  was  so 
famous,  and  which  Sunday  after  Sunday  some  years  ago 
filled  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  to  overflowing,  the  late  Canon 
Liddon  said,  "  The  idea  of  God  kindles  in  the  soul  the  sense 
of  beauty,  and  beauty  that  meets  the  eye  suggests  the 
immaterial  beauty  of  the  invisible  King.  No  religion  can 
afford,  in  the  long-run,  to  neglect  this  instinct  in  the  soul 
of  men."  With  this  in  mind  let  any  one  go  to  Kali-Ghat, 
visit  the  pagoda  there,  study  its  surroundings,  behold  the 
grim  goddess  in  her  sunless  shrine,  and  realise  how  great  is 
the  difference  of  the  climate  of  religious  opinions  in  which 
the  eloquent  Canon  lived  and  breathed,  and  that  which 
envelops  the  terrible  four-handed  goddess  before  whom 
millions  of  worshippers  cower  in  abject  terror.* 

^  Ber.  Alexander  Daff,  D.  D. ,  India  and  Indian  Missions,  indvding Sketches 
of  the  Gigantic  System  of  Hinduism  (Edinburgh,  1839),  pp.  248-250. 

'  "Her  black  features,  the  dark  night  in  which  she  is  worshipped,  the 
bloody  deeds  with  which  her  name  is  associated,  the  countless  sacrifices 
relentlessly  oflFered  at  her  altar,  the  terrific  form  in  which  she  is  represented, 
the  unfeminine  and  warlike  posture  in  which  she  stands,  and  last,  but  not 
least,  the  desperate  character  of  some  of  her  votaries,  inrest  her  name  with 

15 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

The  total  absence  of  beauty,  either  sentimental  or 
artistic,  from  the  legends  and  the  ritual  of  Kali-ism,  is  not 
compensated  by  anything  ennobling  in  the  religion  of  the 
dread  goddess  in  whom  robbers  and  cut-throats  recognise  a 
congenial  patroness.  Not  many  years  ago,  quite  within  my 
own  personal  recollection,  men  used  to  honour  Kali  by 
having  themselves  swung  round  a  lofty  pole  suspended 
from  the  extremity  of  a  cross  piece  pivoted  at  the  top  of  it. 
They  were  supported  by  iron  hooks  passed  through  the 
muscles  of  the  back.  This  barbarous  mode  of  worship  has 
been  prohibited  by  the  British  Government,  but  I  witnessed 
one  exhibition  of  the  kind  before  its  suppression.  In  the 
case  I  saw,  the  man  who  undertook  to  be  swung  in  honour 
of  Kali,  had  the  muscles  of  his  back  terribly  stretched  by 
the  hooks ;  but  he  was  also  supported  by  a  cloth  tied  firmly 
under  his  arms,  which  somewhat  relieved  the  tension  and 
would  have  prevented  his  falling  to  the  ground  had  the 
flesh  given  way  under  the  severe  strain  to  which  it  was 
exposed.  As  the  man  was  whirled  aloft  high  above  the 
heads  of  the  excited  onlookers,  he  threw  down  amongst 
them  small  pieces  of  cocoa-nut  and  sweetmeats  resembling 
comfits,  while  the  drums  made  a  deafening  noise,  and  the 
multitude  shouted  "Victory  to  Mother  Kali."  Votaries, 
less  bold  than  he,  passed  skewers  or  canes  through  the 
muscles  of  their  sides  and  hands,  and  even  through  their 
tongues ;  all  for  Kali,  to  whom  no  offering  could  be  made 
more  acceptable  than  blood,  and  in  whose  honour  they 
danced  about  in  wild  enthusiasm. 

Blood  being  what  Kali  thirsts  for  and  delights  in,  her 
worshippers  gratify  her  to  the  utmost  of  their  ability. 
"  There  is,"  says  Dr.  Rajendra  Lalla  Mitra,  "  scarcely  a 
respectable  house  in  all  Bengal  the  mistress  of  which  has 
not,  at  one  time  or  other,  shed  her  blood  (a  few  drops) 
under  the  notion  of  satisfying  the  goddess  by  the  operation, 
and  rescuing  some  beloved  object  (perhaps  a  husband  or 
son)  from  the  jaws  of  death."  ^ 

A  simple  touching  statement  of  fact  is  this,  beneath  which 

a  terror  which  is  without  a  parallel  in  the  mythological  legends  of  the 
Hindoos." — Shib  Chunder  Bose,  The  Hindoos  as  they  are,  p.  137. 
*  JndO'Aryans,  vol.  ii.  p.  111. 

i6 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM   IN  BENGAL 

we  may  find  the  reason  why  women  in  general,  everywhere 
and  in  nearly  all  stages  of  civilisation,  are  more  rehgious 
than  men.  Elaborate  if  not  entirely  satisfactory  attempts 
have  been  made  to  account  for  women's  superior  religiosity ; 
but,  in  my  opinion,  it  is  attributable  mainly  to  certain 
physiological  and  domestic  experiences  essentially  peculiar 
to  women.  Amongst  these  causes  gestation  and  maternity, 
involving  as  they  do  a  sense  of  dependence,  stand  first, 
for  while  intimately  personal  and  always  mysterious,  they 
call  into  being  special  emotions  and  anxieties  unknown  to 
the  stronger  sex — emotions  and  anxieties  which  find  natural 
expression  in  almost  unreasoning  affection  and  blind  desire 
for  help  in  the  interests  of  the  loved  ones.  Except  perhaps 
in  the  "  highest "  modern  civilisation,  where  women  avoid 
maternity  altogether,  or  else  gladly  delegate  to  trained  or 
untrained  hirelings  the  business  of  rearing  their  offspring,  it 
falls  to  the  lot  of  most  mothers  at  some  time  or  other  to 
have  to  struggle,  as  it  were,  for  the  lives  of  their  children  or 
that  of  the  bread-winner,  and  it  is  these,  often  prolonged 
and  intense  strivings  with  the  Unseen  Powers,  lurking 
behind  disease  and  death,  which  keep  the  light  of  religion 
burning,  generation  after  generation,  in  the  sensitive  souls 
of  mothers  and  wives,  and  will  continue  to  do  so  till  good 
mothers  and  good  wives  of  the  old  type  are  in  the  process 
of  time  eliminated  by  the  ultimate  triumph  of  a  soulless 
civilisation,  built  upon  lucre  and  corroded  with  luxury. 

At  the  temple  of  Kali,  the  promised  victim  is  despatched 
by  the  priest  on  receiving  a  certain  fixed  fee.  He  retains 
the  head  for  himself,  and  places  a  little  of  the  blood  before 
the  idol,  to  which  the  worshipper  makes  his  obeisance  and 
passes  on,  having  fulfilled  his  vow  and  performed  his  duty. 

An  interesting  incident  connected  with  KaH-worship  in 
Northern  India  came  to  my  notice  in  the  early  part  of 
1893.  It  was  given  out  during  the  heat  of  certain  rehgious 
controversies  in  Lahore,  between  the  orthodox  and  certain 
unorthodox  sects  of  Hindus,  that  a  worshipper  of  Kali  had 
ofiered  a  shoe  of  his  tongue  to  the  goddess  as  a  sacrifice, 
and  that  the  gratified  divinity  had  miraculously  restored  the 
mutilated  organ  to  its  original  state.  Five  days  after  this 
incident,  a  procession  in  honour  of  the  event  paraded  the 

B  17 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

city  on  the  31st  March  1893.  This  procession,  as  I  saw  it 
wend  its  way  through  the  narrow  streets  of  the  native 
quarters  of  the  town,  was  of  the  usual  kind.  Preceded  by 
drummers  and  cymbal  players  who  led  the  way,  came  a 
litter  well  filled  with  long  necklaces  of  white  strongly 
scented  flowers.  Almost  smothered  beneath  this  floral 
tribute  was  a  picture  of  the  goddess,  about  six  or  seven 
inches  long  and  three  or  four  inches  wide.  Beside  the 
litter  walked  the  hero  of  the  hour,  but  he  declined  to  show 
the  tongue  which  had  been  miraculously  restored  by  the 
goddess. 

Behind  the  litter  came  a  cart  drawn  by  one  strong  well- 
fed  bull.  It  carried  a  tukta-posh,  or  low  wooden  table, 
whereon  were  seated  gods  and  goddesses.  Mahadeva  (Siva), 
Durga,  Kali,  and  Ganesa  were  there,  personated  by  men  or 
boys,  necessarily  masked,  as  in  the  case  of  the  elephant- 
headed  Ganesa. 

A  second  cart  of  the  same  kind  followed,  one  of  the 
occupants  indulging  in  disgusting  buffoonery.  Then  came 
a  third  cart,  so  contrived  as  to  be  doubled-storeyed.  This 
was  filled  with  boys  and  men. 

The  procession  was  poor  and  tawdry,  yet  the  crowd  that 
came  out  to  take  part  in  it,  and  the  numbers  who  rushed 
out  to  see  it  as  it  passed  along  the  streets,  made  a  very 
considerable  gathering.  Women  formed  only  a  small  pro- 
portion of  the  following;  but  they  were  in  force  on  the 
sides  of  the  road,  at  the  windows,  on  the  balconies,  and  on 
the  house-tops. 

A  native  who  had,  at  my  request,  visited  the  temple 
where  the  miraculous  event  occurred,  told  me  that  he  found 
a  vast  crowd — mostly  women — assembled  there.  On  a 
tray  he  saw  a  piece  of  something  very  red  indeed,  and  was 
assured  by  the  attendants  that  it  was  the  tongue  of  a  man 
who  had  cut  it  off,  and  made  an  offering  of  it  to  the  goddess. 
The  man  whose  severed  tongue  was  being  exhibited  was 
lying — wrapped  up  head  and  all — motionless  on  the  floor 
of  the  temple,  and  the  Pujaris  (officiating  priests)  assured 
the  visitors  that  before  many  hours  would  elapse  the 
faithful  devotee  would  have  his  tongue  restored  to  a  perfect 
condition. 

i8 


KALI-GHAT  AND   HINDUISM   IN   BENGAL 

A  friend  of  mine  heard  a  somwehat  different  story  in 
the  city.  Her  informants  were  girls  of  the  Mission  School. 
According  to  them,  the  self-mutilated  person  was  a  girl, 
well  known  to  them,  who  had  made  an  offering  of  her 
tongue  to  Devi  as  atonement  for  some  sin  or  other.  The 
goddess,  they  said,  had  forgiven  the  penitent  sinner,  and 
had  graciously  restored  the  tongue,  all  but  one  little  piece, 
which  left  a  cicatrice  in  evidence  of  her  act  of  devoted 
self-sacrifice.  One  of  the  young  persons  who  told  the 
European  lady  about  the  miracle,  added  characteristically, 
"  Oh,  Madam,  it  is  not  true  what  you  say  about  Devi  that 
she  cannot  hear  and  answer  prayer!  She  can  hear,  and 
does  answer  prayers,  and  what  you  tell  us  is  not  true." 

And  so  the  worship  of  the  goddess  flourishes,  the  hearts 
of  her  votaries  being  stirred  to  their  depths  by  such  irre- 
futable manifestations  of  her  compassion  and  power. 

In  the  early  part  of  this  chapter  (p.  6)  I  mentioned 
incidentally  that  many  shrines  cluster  about  the  famous 
temple  at  Kali-Ghat,  and  I  now  revert  to  this  interesting 
circumstance,  which  reveals  to  the  most  casual  visitor  the 
polytheistic  character  of  Hinduism. 

I  have  before  me  a  sketch-plan  of  the  temple  at  Kali- 
Ghat  and  its  environs,  which  a  friend  in  Calcutta  had 
prepared  for  me.  This  shows  no  less  than  fifteen  minor 
temples  standing  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  principal 
edifice ;  some  near  the  sacred  pond  Kundoo,  others  on  the 
side  of  the  road  leading  to  the  river,  and  two  alongside  the 
bathing  ghats.  Of  these  smaller  temples  the  greater  number 
are  dedicated  to  Siva,  Kali's  divine  consort,  worshipped 
under  that  well-known  phallic  symbol  the  lingam.  One 
temple  has  been  built  in  honour  of  Siva's  son  Ganesa,  the 
God  of  Wisdom.  Two  or  three  of  the  shriaes  are,  I  fancy, 
erected  to  Siva  under  one  or  other  of  the  thousand  names 
which  he  is  said  to  possess.  But  the  most  interesting  of 
the  minor  temples  we  are  considering  is,  in  my  opinion, 
an  insignificant  one  within  the  main  enclosure  dedicated 
to  Krishna  (Vishnu)  and  his  mistress  Eadha.  Now  the 
presence  of  this  shrine  was  to  me  a  by  no  means  unwelcome 
discovery,  for  it  at  least  proved  that  the  more  recent  and 
far  gentler  cult  of  the  Chaitanite  sect  of  Bengal,  which 

19 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

dates  from  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  had  been 
able  to  obtain  a  recognised  footing  even  in  the  gory  strong- 
hold of  the  much  older  religion  of  Kali.  And  I  accepted 
tlie  fact  as  indicating  a  tendency  amongst  Bengalis  towards 
less  inhuman  ideals  than  those  which  are  embodied  in 
Kali-ism,  for  Chaitanya,  the  apostle  of  the  Krishna-cum- 
Radha  cult,  was  strongly  opposed  to  all  animal  sacrifices. 
Moreover,  when  we  call  to  mind  that  Hinduism  is  divided 
off  into  two  marked  divisions,  namely,  the  cult  of  Siva,  his 
consorts,  etc.,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  cult  of  Vishnu  and 
his  consorts,  etc.,  on  the  other,  the  amicable  contiguity  of 
shrines  devoted  to  the  principal  gods  of  these  two  main 
sections  of  Hinduism  is  not  without  significance. 

All  who  know  the  people  of  India  will  admit  that  they 
are  on  the  whole  extremely  and  genuinely  religious,  being, 
in  fact,  living  examples  of  the  belief  that  "  the  fear  of  God 
is  the  beginning  of  wisdom."  ^  But  though  men  and  women 
everywhere  turn  appealingly  to  God  in  times  of  danger  or 
trouble,  it  is  rarely  that  they  come  to  record  publicly,  in 
the  divine  presence,  oaths  in  respect  of  their  political 
engagements.  Therefore  I  was  struck  by  the  fact,  lately 
reported  in  the  Indian  newspapers,  that  at  the  height  of 
the  excitement  aroused  by  the  partition  of  Bengal,  thou- 
sands of  irate  Bengalis  had  pledged  themselves  by  solemn 
oaths  taken  before  the  dread  goddess  Kali,  that  they  would 
refrain  from  using  all  goods  of  European  manufacture. 
"When  analysed,  the  facts  referred  to  reveal  the  hysterical 
nature  and  strong  religious  bias  of  the  Bengalis,  as  also 
their  eagerness  to  secure  divine  countenance  and  assistance, 
and  at  the  same  time  disclose  only  too  clearly  their  want 
of  self-confidence  and  their  mutual  distrust. 

1  Even  Dr.  Alexander  Duff,  the  great  Scotch  missionary  to  India,  while 
lamenting  the  dark  superstitions  of  the  Hindus,  often  contrasts  their  re- 
ligious earnestness  and  sincerity  with  the  lukewarmness  of  his  own  money- 
making  and  pleasure-seeking  countrymen,  e.g.,  India  and  Indian  Missions, 
pp.  202,  203.     . 


20 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM  IN  BENGAL 
— amtiniied 


Section  II. — ^Tlie  Goddess  Durga — Hindu  idea  of  the  acquisition  of  super- 
natural power  by  means  of  austerities — The  Durga  2)ujah — Its  excesses. 

'EEAT  as  is  the  prestige  of 
Mother  Kali  in  Eastern 
India,  the  favourite  deity 
sy  -■• *-:^^^^^'- -  -l/s"!  of  the  Bengalis  is  never- 
^  ''^i^^^^^  ^m^  theless  Durga,  repre- 
sented usually  as  a  golden 
coloured,  ten-armed  goddess 
with  a  gentle  expression  of 
countenance,  even  when 
engaged  in  slaying  the  giant 
Mahisha.  She  also  is  the 
consort  of  Siva,  and  as- 
sumed various  forms  for  the  express  purpose  of  destroying 
dreadful  giants  and  monsters,  who,  by  the  practice  of 
austerities,  had  become  a  cause  of  great  apprehension  to 
the  gods. 

In  the  composite  Pantheon  of  the  Hindus,  it  is  often  a 
difficult  or  even  impossible  task  to  assign  a  correct  position 
to  any  particular  divinity,  as  it  often  happens  that  one  and 
the  same  god  or  goddess  is  worshipped  under  different 
names  and  forms  associated  with  particular  appearances 
and  actions.  Siva's  consort,  as  Durga,  is  a  special  mani- 
festation of  martial  power  for  the  destruction  of  certain 
beings  obnoxious  to  gods  and  men,  and  the  various  shapes 
in  which,  under  special  names,  she  makes  her  different  ap- 
pearances are  commonly  regarded  as  distinct  divinities. 
Hence  it  comes  about  that  of  these  manifestations  of  power, 
which  are  many  in  number,  the  goddess  Kali  already  suf- 

21 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

ficiently  described  is  one,  and,  next  to  the  original  Durga, 
the  recipient  of  the  highest  honour  and  worship. 

There  are  many  different  accounts  of  the  origin  of 
Durga  and  Kali,  but  I  pass  them  over,  having  no  intention 
of  involving  myself  in  mythological  details.  As  for  the 
battles  these  warrior-goddesses  fought  with  their  giant 
opponents,  they  are  such  as  only  the  wildest  imagination 
could  possibly  have  conceived.  In  Hindu  legends  one  looks 
in  vain  for  ordinary  men  and  women.  Only  gods,  super- 
human monsters,  and  perhaps  ascetic  saints  as  fierce,  un- 
scrupulous, and  powerful  as  the  others,  figure  in  the  troubled 
pictures  and  dark  creations  of  the  myth-makers  of  India. 

Dreadful  monsters  and  divine  deliverers  loom  dimly  in 
the  early  dawn  of  many  religions;  but  in  the  cases  we 
are  now  considering,  the  old  gorgons  and  chimseras  dire, 
together  with  their  destroyers,  appear  to  have  somehow 
blundered  into  the  daylight  of  the  twentieth  century,  in 
their  crude  primitive  forms,  unmodified  by  time  and  un- 
softened  by  culture. 

The  belief  that  the  dangerous  monsters  of  the  primeval 
world  of  India  acquired  their  supernatural  power  by  means 
of  sacrifices,  austerities,  spells,  and  ceremonies,  is  a  note- 
worthy feature  of  Hinduism,  well  known  to  the  most  super- 
ficial student  of  Indian  religions,  and  seems  indeed  to  be 
the  most  important  part  of  the  stock-in-trade  of  the  Indian 
mythologists.  But  more  extraordinary  than  this  strange 
idea  itself  is  the  fact  that  it  has  lost  none  of  its  freshness 
in  the  minds  of  the  Indian  people,  and,  as  I  have  pointed 
out  elsewhere,!  the  Yogi  of  our  own  day  is  still  a  man  who 
acquires  superhuman  power  in  the  old  way. 

In  connection  with  the  worship  of  the  goddess  Durga, 
vividly  do  I  recall  to  mind  the  annual  Durga  ;pujah  pro- 
cessions, as  I  have  seen  them  times  and  often  in  the 
streets  of  Calcutta.  On  these  occasions  the  excitement  is 
intense,  and  the  spectacle  at  night  truly  remarkable.  The 
enthusiastic  crowds  of  dusky  worshippers,  wrought  up 
almost  to  frenzy ;  the  flaring  torches  throwing  their 
yellow  glare  upon  the  gaudy  idol  carried  aloft  on  the 
willing  shoulders  of  men;  the  discordant  and  deafening 
^  The  Mystics,  Ascetics,  mid  Saints  of  India. 
22 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM   IN  BENGAL 

din  of  the  drums  and  other  instruments  mingled  with 
the  tumultuous  shouts  of  the  thronging  multitude,  make 
up  a  spectacle  and  produce  an  impression  not  easily  effaced 
from  the  memory. 

Of  all  the  Bengali  religious  festivals  the  Durga  p^ijah 
is  by  far  the  most  popular.  It  is  the  season  of  annual 
family  reunions,  to  which  old  and  young  travel  long 
distances.  It  is  the  recognised  occasion  for  the  inter- 
change of  presents,  a  time  especially  suitable  for  the 
exercise  of  benevolent  feelings,  and  is  often  marked  by 
extensive,  sometimes  large-handed  liberality,  both  within 
and  without  the  family  circle.  Eeligious  ceremonies  and 
the  making  of  offerings  and  animal  sacrifices  occupy  a 
large  part  of  the  three  days  of  the  pujah',  but  the  last 
of  these  usually  presents  a  scene  of  orgiastic  boisterous- 
ness,  in  which  men  intoxicated  with  fanaticism,  smear 
themselves  with  the  gory  mire  of  the  sacrificial  slaughter- 
places,  and  then  dance  in  delirious  ecstasy  before  the 
idol,  abandoning  themselves,  with  the  sensuality  of  their 
race,  to  immundicities  of  song  and  gesture  which  seem  to 
be  inseparable  from  the  worship  of  the  goddesses  they 
adore.^  However,  such  scenes  of  religious  excitement 
cannot  last,  and  in  the  grey  morning,  at  the  conclusion 
of  the  pujah,  the  worshippers  consign  their  painted  clay 
idol  to  the  water  of  the  most  convenient  stream  or  pond. 
No  doubt  the  festival  being  over,  the  presence  of  the 
goddess  in  the  consecrated  image  ceases,  and  it  loses  its 
special  sanctity ;  yet,  having  even  for  a  brief  period 
harboured  the  celestial  power,  the  effigy  is  too  sacred 
to  be  exposed  to  profane  handling,  and  is  consequently 
dismantled,  and  committed  to  the  purifying  element.^ 

*  Shib  Chunder  Bose,  The  Hindoos  as  they  are,  chap.  viii. 

2  A  short  article  by  Mr.  B.  C.  Mazumdar,  M.R.A.S.,  on  the  origin  and 
history  of  Durga,  purporting  to  show  tbat  the  goddess  was  of  non-Aryan 
origin,  and  that  her  worship  was  introduced  into  Bengal  from  the  Vindhya 
mountains,  appeared  in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society  for  April 
1906. 


21 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM  IN  BENGAL 

— continued 


Section  III. — Three-fourths  of  the  Hindus  of  Bengal  worship  Durga  and 
Kali — These  cults  have  extended  beyond  the  limits  of  India  proper. 


I  HE  worship  of  Durga  and  Kali, 
attended  in  both  cases  with 
animal  sacrifices  on  an  ex- 
travagant scale,  and  with 
licentious  songs  and  lewd 
dances  of  a  highly  unseemly 
character,  is  practically  the  re- 
ligion of  probably  three -fourths 
of  the  46,740,661  persons  who, 
at  the  date  of  the  last  census 
(1901),  constituted  the  Hindu 
population  of  Bengal,  the  re- 
maining one-fourth  being  Vaish- 
navas  or  worshippers  of  Vishnu.  Amongst  the  latter  the 
Chaitanites,  devoted  to  the  Krishna-cum-Eadha  cult,  form  no 
unimportant  section,  and  include  in  their  body  sub-sects 
addicted  to  decidedly  immoral  practices. 

Bearing  in  mind  that  amongst  the  Durga,  Kali,  and 
Krishna  worshippers  are  to  be  found  men  of  every  caste, 
every  degree  of  intelligence  and  education,  and  every  grade 
of  society  in  a  Province  commonly  considered  to  be  the 
most  advanced  in  India,  the  above  facts  and  figures  cannot 
fail  to  arrest  the  attention  of  the  most  casual  reader, 
especially  if  he  learn  at  the  same  time  that  the  native 
Christian  population  of  Bengal  according  to  the  already 
cited  census  was  below  a  quarter  of  a  million. 

To  the  immense  number  of  Durga  and  Kali  worshippers, 

24 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM  IN  BENGAL 

many  millions  of  so-called  Muhammadans  in  the  eastern 
portions  of  the  country  might  be  added,  for  they,  too,  dread 
and  propitiate  these  terrible  female  divinities,  who  have, 
moreover,  a  not  inconsiderable  following  in  other  Provinces 
of  India,  outside  the  limits  of  Bengal,  and  even  in  the 
valleys  of  the  Himalayas,  the  mountains  of  Nepal,  and 
the  great  tableland  of  Tibet.^  Kali -worship  has  even 
penetrated  into  that  exclusive  stronghold  of  Buddhism, 
the  no  longer  mysterious  Lhassa.* 

*  Throughout  Northern  India  and  the  Punjab,  Durga  is  worshipped  in 
every  Hiudu  family  at  the  time  of  the  Dosahra  festival,  which  is  in  honour 
of  Rama,  but  coincides  in  point  of  time  with  the  Durga  pujah  of  Bengal. 

The  Tantric  worship  has  even  extended  to  Tibet,  and  the  Hindu  Tantras 
have  been  translated  into  the  language  of  that  country. 

Dr.  Rajendra  Lalla  Mitra,  Indo-Aryans,  vol.  ii.  p.  105. 

-  Bai  Sarat  Chunder  Dass  Bahadur  in  a  lecture  on  Tibet,  delivered  in 
April  1904  at  Calcutta,  mentioned  that  the  goddess  Kali  was  worshipped 
by  the  Tibetans,  and  that  there  is  a  temple  at  Lhassa  dedicated  to  that 
goddess  under  the  name  of  Shridevi. 

It  is  a  rather  curious  and  not  uninteresting  fact  that  Durga  has  even 
invaded  the  domain  of  modem  science,  a  contemporary  entomologist  having 
named  one  of  the  Cicadidae  of  Eastern  India  Cosmopsaltria  durga,  after 
the  famous  goddess.  (A  Monograph  of  the  Oriental  Cieadidee,  by  W.  L 
Distant,  p.  56.) 


25 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM  IN  BENGAL 

— continued 


Section  IV. — Indian  worsliip  of  the  Female  Energy  in  Nature  and  its 
obscene  rites — Position  of  women  in  Bengali  society. 

OTWITHSTANDING  what  has  been  said 
regarding  the  drunken  orgies  connected 
wiLh  the  worship  of  female  divinities 
in  Bengal,  it  may  startle  many  readers 
to  learn  that  rites  such  as  were  prac- 
tised of  old  in  Assyria,  Babylon,  and 
Phoenicia  in  honour  of  Ishtar,  Nana, 
and  Astarte,  have  their  analogues  in 
ceremonies  and  customs  in  vogue  in  India 
at  the  present  time ;  but  such  is  the 
undeniable  fact,  and  it  is  probable  that 
the  worship  of  the  great  nature  goddess 
of  Asia  has  never  died  out,  but  in  some  form  or  other  has 
kept  its  hold  upon  the  sensuous  races  of  the  East,  justify- 
ing to  some  extent  the  belief  that  sexual  morality  is,  after 
all,  purement  gdographique. 

In  Bengal,  and  outside  Bengal  too,  is  to  be  found  a 
sect  known  as  Saktas,  devoted  to  the  worship  of  Sakti, 
the  female  energy  in  Nature,  having  as  their  Scriptures 
the  Tantras.  This  form  of  worship  evidently  finds  favour 
with  the  Brahmans,  for  Dr.  Bhattacharjee,  himself  a  Bengali 
Brahman,  states  that  "  the  majority  of  the  Brahmans 
of  Bengal,  Mithila,  and  Punjab  are  Saktas  of  a  moderate 
type."  He  also  says  that  the  Karhadeh  Bramans  of  the 
Mahratta  country  are  Saktas,  and  adds  that  the  members 
of  the  influential  Kayastha  caste  are  also  mostly  Saktas. 
The  Sakta  sect  is  divided  into  three  sub-sects — 
1.  Dakshinachari,  or  the  right-handed  Saktas, 

26 


KALI-GHAT  AND   HINDUISM   IN   BENGAL 

2.  Bamachari,  or  the  left-handed  Saktas, 

3.  Kowls,  or  the  extreme  Saktas ; 

and  it  must  in  justice  be  stated  that  the  extreme  forms 
of  this  worship  are  not  held  in  general  esteem  by  the 
bulk  of  the  Hindus  of  Bengal,  and  consequently  members 
of  these  sub -sects  usually,  though  by  no  means  always, 
conceal  from  the  world  the  fact  of  their  belonging  to  the 
brotherhood ;  but  that  the  rites  referred  to  are  secretly 
practised  by  great  numbers  of  people,  particularly  Brahmans, 
both  in  and  out  of  Bengal,  there  is  no  gainsaying. 

Of  these  secret  rites,  unseemly  and  unsavoury  though 
they  be,  it  is  necessary  that  I  should  now  state  something 
more  definite  if  my  reader  is  to  be  in  a  position  to  under- 
stand the  real  inwardness  of  the  Hindu  religion,  as  it  exists 
in  Bengal,  and  therefore  I  reluctantly  venture  to  record 
the  following  particulars. 

For  the  purpose  of  Tantric  worship,  eight,  nine,  or 
eleven  couples  of  men  and  women  meet  by  appointment 
at  midnight.  All  distinctions  of  caste,  rank,  and  kindred 
being  temporarily  suspended,  they  go  through  prescribed 
religious  ceremonies,  set  up  a  nude  woman,  adorned  only 
with  jewels,  as  representative  of  Sakti  (the  female  energy), 
worship  her  with  strange  rites,  feast  themselves  on  flesh 
and  fish,  indulge  in  wine,  and  give  themselves  over  to 
every  imaginable  excess.  During  these  orgiastic  religious 
rites^  every  man  present  is,  according  to  their  pantheistic 
notions,  Siva  himself,  and  every  woman  there  none  other 
than  Siva's  consort.^ 

^  These  facts  I  have  ascertained  directly  from  the  people  themselves  ;  but 
the  reader  desiring  fuller  information  may  consult  on  this  subject : 

(1)  Rev.  AV.  Ward,  A  View  of  the  History,  Literature,  and  Religions  of 
the  Hindus,  pp.  152, 153,  and  232-234.  (2)  Professor  H.  H.  Wilson,  Essays 
on  the  Religion  of  the  Hindus,  vol.  i.  pp.  254-263.  (3)  Professor  Sir  Monier 
Williams,  RcWjious  Thought  and  Life  in  India,  pp.  190-192.  (4)  Rev.  W. 
J.  Wilkins,  Modern  Hinduism,  pp.  94,  95.  (5)  Dr.  J.  N.  Bhattacharjee, 
Hindit  Castes  and  Sects,  pp.  407-413.  The  Muhammadau  author  of  the 
Dabistan  (a.d.  1615-1670)  was  aware  of  these  practices,  and  refers  to  them 
in  his  work. — Shea  and  Troyer's  translation,  vol.  ii.  pp.  152-154. 

Some  sixty  years  ago,  according  to  a  Bengali  writer,  "The  Tantric 
worship  flourished  in  Bengal  with  all  its  midnight  horrors  and  corruptions  " 
(Jogindra  Chandra  Bose's  preface  to  the  works  of  Raja  Ram  Mohun  Roy), 
and  there  is  no  special  reason  to  conclude  that  it  has  undergone  any  marked 
discouragement  of  late. 

27 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

Now,  coexisting  with  the  obvious  polytheism  of  the 
Hindus  is  a  subtle  pantheism  which  embraces  all  that 
is  best  in  Hindu  speculation.  Of  this  pantheism  in  its 
highest  development,  the  essential  religious  spirit  is,  as  I 
shall  presently  explain,  a  desire,  a  yearning  for  direct 
communion  with  the  world-soul,  and  for  ultimate  absorption 
into  the  Infinite.  This  aspiration  may  be  traced  throughout 
all  the  vagaries  of  the  strange  cults  which  Hinduism  has 
accepted  and  appropriated  or  itself  developed  under  the 
influence  of  its  environment  and  local  antecedents.  And 
even  in  the  Sakti  worship,  where  all  seems  impure  and 
degraded,  the  same  desire  is,  strange  to  say,  distinctly 
recognisable.! 

As,  amongst  the  peoples  of  India,  the  Bengalis  are,  par 
CMellence,  the  Saktas,  or  worshippers  of  the  female  energy, 
we  may  profitably  pause  for  a  moment  to  consider  how 
their  notions  in  regard  to  the  position  and  treatment  of  the 
female  sex  have  been  affected  by  their  religious  conceptions. 
If  general  opinion  is  to  be  trusted,  a  Bengali  mother  is 
respected  by  her  children  in  an  almost  extravagant  degree, 
and  the  wife's  position  in  most  households  is  an  honourable 
and  honoured  one,  although  both  custom  and  religion  require 
that  girls  in  Bengal  should  begin  married  life  at  quite  a 
tender  age. 

In  connection  with  the  point  we  are  considering,  there 
is  one  feature  of  social  life  in  Bengal  which,  though  peculiar 
to  only  a  small  section  of  the  community,  should  not  be 
overlooked.  I  mean  the  practice  of  Kulinism  or  extensive 
polygamy  by  a  certain  class  of  Brahmans  known  as  Kulins. 
This  is  confined  to  Bengal,  and  annually  condemns  to 
inevitable  misery  thousands  of  women,  consigned — some- 
times a  whole  family  of  sisters,  cousins,  and  aunts  together 
— to  the  embraces  of  these  Kulin  Brahmans,  whose  object 
in    such   wholesale    alliances    is    often    merely  pecuniary 

1  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  vague  "Religion  of  Humanity,"  the 
latest  philosophical  creed  of  the  "West,  which  we  owe  to  the  Positinsts, 
encourages  the  worship  of  women,  as  the  representative  of  humanity,  and  as 
suggestive  of  universal  love. — Rev.  Professor  T.  R.  Thomson,  Non-Biblical 
Systems  of  Religion,  p.  186. 

I  wonder  what  this  worship,  if  it  does  not  die  out  very  soon,  will 
eventually  lead  to  ! 

28 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM   IN  BENGAL 

benefit ;  for  the  parents  of  the  brides  have  to  continue  to 
support  them,  while  paying  handsomely  the  high-caste 
husbands  for  the  honour  of  their  attentions. 

So  objectionable  and  barbarous  is  Kulinism  that  if  it 
did  not  actually  exist,  it  might  well  be  thought  impossible 
in  any  community  regulated  upon  rational  principles.  As 
often  as  not  the  Kulin  husband  selected  for  a  girl,  or  a 
family  of  girls,  is  a  decrepit  libertine,  tottering  on  the  verge 
of  the  grave,  and  already  united  to  scores  of  unwilling  wives. 
What  such  a  system  must  lead  to  is  obvious,  and  need  not 
be  discussed. 


29 


KALI-GHAT  AND  HINDUISM  IN  BENGAL 

— contimted 


Section  V. — The  Higher  Hinduism  explained — Inoperative  as  regards  the 
masses — Religion  a  sacred  disease. 

'Y  brief  sketch  will  have  made  it 
clear  that  Hinduism  in  Bengal 
is  practically  the  worship  of 
goddesses,  attended  with  the 
shedding  of  much  blood,  and 
these  are  peculiarities  of  the 
faith  in  Eastern  India,  includ- 
ing Assam. 

In  the  north-western  parts 
of  Aryavarta,  the  great  gods, 
Siva  and  Vishnu,  the  latter  in 
his  Krishna  and  Kama  incarna- 
tions, are  the  favourite  deities,  and   their   cults   do   not 
countenance  animal  sacrifices. 

Turning  from  bloody  sacrifices,  objectionable  customs, 
and  midnight  orgies,  it  is  a  relief  to  be  able  to  affirm  that 
there  is  a  brighter  side  to  Hinduism  (whether  ancient  or 
modern),  a  side  which  has  of  late  become  known,  and  even 
been  much  appreciated  in  Europe  through  the  labours  of 
Sanskrit  scholars,  and  the  preaching  and  writings  of  con- 
temporary Hindu  reformers. 

Let  me  explain  this  important  matter  briefly. 
In  the  pantheism  which  pervades  and  colours  all  Hindu- 
ism, we  find  the  following  generally  accepted  doctrines. 

That  the  human  soul  is  an  emanation  from  the  All- 
Spirit  which  is  immanent  in  the  universe,  from  which  indeed 
all  things  proceed,  and  to  which  all  things  return  : 

That  the  embodied  soul  has  a  natural  longing  for  re- 

30 


KALI-GHAT  AND   HINDUISM   IN  BENGAL 

union  with  the  First  Cause,  but  is  debarred  from  such  re- 
union by  the  taint  of  its  earthly  desires,  due,  of  course,  to 
the  corporeal  frame  in  which  it  is  imprisoned : 

That  while  such  earthly  desires  remain  unextinguished, 
and  while  earthly  passions  or  longings  continue  to  exist, 
the  human  soul  is  subject,  on  the  dissolution  of  its  corporeal 
frame,  to  be  reincarnated  again  and  again,  perhaps  through 
seons  of  time,  until  finally  emancipated  from  all  mundane 
hopes  and  affections  it  is  fit  to  be  reunited  to  the  pure 
source  from  which  it  sprang : 

That  the  circumstances  of  each  embodied  existence  are 
the  result  of  the  works  done  in  previous  existences : 

That  souls,  according  to  their  actions,  may  enjoy  periods 
of  happiness  in  this  world,  or  the  heavens  of  the  gods,  or, 
on  the  other  hand,  suffer  periods  of  punishment  on  this 
earth,  or  in  the  hells  reserved  for  evil-doers ;  but  the  blissful 
ending  is  hastened  or  postponed  by  the  actions  of  the  soul 
in  its  successive  incarnations,  and  will  only  arrive  when 
the  soul  has  emancipated  itself  from  all  hopes  and  fears : 

That  consequently  in  every  embodied  existence,  it  is  the 
soul's  interest  and  duty  to  strive  against  worldliness,  and 
to  free  itself  from  all  carnal  desires,  so  as  to  ensure  its  early 
release  from  the  deadly  trammels  of  matter,  and  to  effect 
its  own  blissful  reunion  with  the  All-Spirit,  a  reunion 
assured  in  every  case. 

Now,  in  these  subtle  doctrines,  which  are  not  of  Aryan 
origin,  and  not  traceable  in  the  Vedic  hymns,  the  cultured 
Hindu  finds  a  satisfying  explanation  of  the  inequalities 
and  apparent  injustices  of  which  he  has  experience  and 
knowledge.  He  also  finds  sufficient  reason  for  the  worship 
of  the  gods  who  can  bestow  many  blessings ;  but  he  also 
learns  that  his  final  salvation  must  be  worked  out  by  his 
own  soul,  and  depends  entirely  upon  its  Karma  or  actions. 

The  doctrine  of  metempsychosis  found  its  way  to  Europe 
during  the  Crusades.  In  the  thirteenth  century  we  find 
the  heretical  troubadours  publicly  accused  of  believing  in 
the  transmigration  of  souls  and  repeated  reincarnations;^ 
while  to-day  the  same  tenets  coupled  with  Karma  have 
been  accepted  by  and  received  vigorous  support  amongst 

*  J.  E.  Rowbotham,  M.A,  Troubadours  and  Courts  of  Love,  p.  304. 

31 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF  INDIA 

the  active  Theosophists  of  the  United  States  of  America.^ 
And  the  transmigration  of  souls  as  a  recognised  tenet  finds 
acceptance  in  other  new  rehgious  movements  of  our  time.^ 

Although  the  truth  of  the  doctrines  stated  above,  like 
the  verity  of  the  corresponding  dogmas  of  other  creeds, 
can  never  he  proved,  still  they  are  undoubtedly  competent 
to  afford  hope,  to  teach  resignation  in  existing  troubles,  to 
discourage  worldliness  and  promote  virtuous  living. 

Thus  we  find  that  floating  above  the  shoreless  sea  of 
chaotic  superstition  and  gross  licence,  which  is  practically 
the  religion  of  the  Hindu  masses,  there  are  discernible 
bright  clouds  of  purer  doctrine  and  nobler  sentiment. 
Unfortunately,  however,  they  are  very  far  overhead,  cast- 
ing only  an  uncertain  reflection  of  their  beautiful  forms 
upon  the  dark  waters  below;  for  truth  demands  the 
acknowledgment  that  although  much  that  is  elevating  may 
be  found  in  some  sacred  literature  of  the  Hindus,  and  in 
the  philosophico-religious  teachings  of  Indian  sages,  these 
influences  for  good  have  but  a  limited  effect  upon  the 
conduct  of  life  amongst  the  masses  of  the  Hindu  population 
to-day,  and  truth  equally  demands  the  admission  that  the 
incongruity  between  doctrine  and  practice,  in  the  case  of 
Hinduism  to  which  I  have  just  drawn  attention,  is  by  no 
means  confined  to  that  faith,  but  is  very  conspicuous  also 
in  the  other  religions  of  the  world,  whether  professed  by 
Orientals  or  Occidentals. 

"  But  what,"  it  may  be  asked,  "  is  the  attitude  towards 
religion  of  the  more  intellectual  classes  in  Bengal  ?  Surely 
they  do  not  countenance  the  obscenities  of  popular  Hinduism 
in  their  native  country  ? " 

English  education  has  made  considerable  progress  in 
Bengal,  and  some  of  its  results  are  strikingly  apparent  in 
the  persons  of  many  Bengalis  who  hold  and  adorn  some  of 
the  highest  legal  and  other  appointments  under  the  British 
Government.  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  being  fairly  well 
acquainted  with  some  highly  educated  Bengalis,  and  what- 
ever their  private  opinions  might  be,  I  know  that,  out- 

^  C.  M.  Leadbeater,  The  Other  Side  of  Death  (Theosophical  Publishing 
Company). 

2  HiVbeH  Journal,  October  1906,  pp.  174,  175. 

32 


KALI-GHAT  AND   HINDUISM   IN   BENGAL 

wardly  at  least,  they  generally  conform  to  the  religious 
customs,  and  respect  the  social  prejudices  of  their  people. 
And  more  than  that  I  should  not  like  to  affirm.  The  fact 
that  Bengal  produces  many  clever  lawyers,  successful 
physicians,  capable  professors,  good  orators,  smart  journalists^ 
persistent  political  agitators,  and  valuable  public  servants, 
is  not  sufficient  ground  for  concluding  that  even  in  the 
case  of  these  more  advanced  njembers  of  the  community, 
the  racial  characteristics  have  undergone  very  much,  if 
any,  change. 

Old  religious  ideas,  sentiments,  rites,  and  customs 
derived  from  a  remote  past,  enshrined  in  the  national 
literature  and  folk-lore,  woven  indeed  into  the  very  fabric 
of  a  people's  life,  cannot  be  easily  set  aside,  especially  when 
the  women  cling  to  them  tenaciously,  with  all  the  con- 
servative instinct  of  the  sex.  Hence  it  is  highly  probable 
that  even  at  the  present  day,  as  in  times  past,  the  more 
thoughtful  and  cultured  Bengalis  are  able,  from  the  serener 
summits  of  what  has  been  called  the  "  Higher  Hinduism," 
the  philosophico-religious  Pantheism  of  their  sages,  to 
regard  with  indulgent,  and  even  sympathetic  tolerance,  the 
peculiar  religious  sentiments,  customs,  and  practices  in  which 
they  have  themselves  been  reared. 

No  one  who  knows  the  people  of  India  will  doubt  for  a 
moment  that  they  are  essentially  a  religious  people,  but  when 
the  actual  outcome  of  their  religious  aspirations  in  the 
most  populous  and  advanced  province  of  the  Indian  Empire 
is  such  as  I  have  briefly  outlined  in  the  preceding  pages, 
one  may  be  excused  for  giving  a  qualified  adhesion  to  the 
doctrine  of  Heraclitus  that  religion  is  a  disease,  though  a 
sacred  disease.  In  Bengal,  assuredly,  religion  would  seem 
to  be  a  morbid  emotional  affection,  whether  sacred  or  not, 
to  which,  in  some  form  or  other,  every  man  and  woman 
is  subject ;  and  to-day,  as  in  past  generations,  this  morbid 
emotional  affection  tends  to  sap  the  manhood  of  the 
people  and  effeminate  the  race. 


33 


CASTE 


.^Jij^ 


CHAPTER  II 

CASTE  IN  INDIA 

Section  I. — The  more 
obvious  features 
of  the  present-day 
caste  system. 

VEN  the  casual 
tourist  in  India, 
if  he  keep  his 
eyes  and  ears 
about  him, 
when  his  train 
stops  on  a  hot 
day  at  any  of  the 
larger  railway 
stations,  will  not 
fail  to  discover, 
as  he  watches  the 
bustle  and  move- 
ment on  the  plat- 
form, and  hears 
the  shouts  of  the 
thirsty  native 
passengers,  that 
there  are  two 
watermen  to 
supply  the  needs 
of  the  Hindus 
and  Muhamma- 
dans  respectively, 
the  former  carry- 
ing his  store  in  a 


CASTE   IN   INDIA 

metal  vessel,  the  latter  in  a  leathern  bag  known  as  a 
mashk,  and  he  may  further  note  that  the  Muhammadan 
water-carrier  will,  if  required,  minister  to  the  wants  of  the 
white  soldiers  in  the  second-class  car,  but  the  Hindu  will  pass 
them  by,  notwithstanding  their  importunities. 

These  simple  but  significant  facts  will  at  once   reveal 

the  great  gulfs  of  social  exclusiveness  which  irreconcilable 

beliefs  have  produced  in  India,  and  serve  to  accentuate  the 

hyper-sensitiveness  of  the  Hindus  in  respect  to  intercourse 

.with  either  Muslim  or  Christian. 

With  the  wider  experience  which  is  gained  by  residence 
in  India,  the  European  learns  that  the  Hindus  are  them- 
selves divided  into  a  multiplicity  of  well-recognised  groups 
of  families,  the  members  of  which  may  not  marry  persons 
outside  their  own  group ;  that  little  social  intercourse  takes 
place  or  is  permitted  between  individuals  belonging  to 
these  distinct  groups  which  constitute  the  Hindu  castes; 
and  that  amongst  Indian  Muslims  also  caste  divisions  in  a 
modified  form  exist  to  some  extent.  It  will  not  be  long 
before  the  foreign  resident  learns  tha.tjat  or  zat  and  jat-bhai, 
meaning  caste  and  caste-mates  respectively,  are  words  for 
ever  on  the  lips  of  the  people ;  that  at  the  top  of  the  caste 
scale  stand  the  Brahmans  who  are  the  hereditary  priest- 
hood, and  below  them  a  variety  of  castes  with  pretensions, 
customs,  and  sometimes  occupations  which  differentiate  one 
from  the  other.  Theoretically  there  were  originally  only 
three  superior  castes,  the  Brahmans,  Kshatriyas,  and  Vaisygis, 
and  at  the  bottom  of  the  social  scale  one  great  servile  caste 
known  as  Sudras.  Though  these  names,  except  in  the  case 
of  the  Brahmans,  have  lost  their  old  significance,  they  are 
still  frequently  used  and  have  to  be  borne  in  mind. 

According  to  the  census  of  India,  taken  in  1901,  the 
Hindu  population  excluding  the  Sikhs  numbered  207,147,026 
souls,  while  the  tables  appended  to  the  Report  include 
no  less  than  2378  main  castes  and  tribes  and  43  races  or 
nationalities. 

Under  the  caste  system,  as  it  prevails  amongst  the 
Hindus,  the  social  and  religious  life  of  the  members  of  each 
caste  is  governed  by  rules  peculiar  to  itself,  but  precise  in 
their  requirements,  while  all  infringements  of  such  rules 

35 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

expose  the  delinquent  to  various  penaltie8,including  ostracism 
of  divers  degrees  of  stringency. 

Some  of  the  rules  are  extremely  inconvenient  in  their 
operation,  especially  such  as  require  the  higher  castes  to 
avoid  the  touch  of  men  of  inferior  caste-status,  and  some- 
times lead  to  situations  which  border  on  the  ludicrous. 
For  example,  one  might  notice  a  customer  standing  respect- 
fully outside  a  draper's  shop  in  the  bazaar,  desirous  of 
buying  a  bit  of  cloth.  After  the  usual  chaffering,  he 
deposits  the  price  on  the  edge  of  the  boarded  floor  which 
projects  on  the  street  at  about  two  feet  above  the  ground, 
and  having  done  this,  stands  patiently  outside  the  shop 
while  the  draper  measures  out  the  quantity  paid  for. 
Presently  the  required  number  of  yards  of  the  selected 
material  are  thrown  unceremoniously  towards  the  pur- 
chaser, who  makes  a  low  obeisance  and  retires.  This 
is  a  case  of  business  conducted  between  a  low-caste  man 
and  one  several  degrees  above  him  in  the  caste  scale; 
the  latter  being  painfully  anxious  to  avoid  the  slightest 
contact  with  the  low-caste  fellow,  because  it  would  entail 
ceremonial  defilement  requiring  at  the  very  least  religious 
ablution  before  any  food  could  be  eaten  by  the  person  thus 
contaminated. 

A  close  scrutiny  of  the  two  men,  draper  and  customer, 
would  probably  make  it  clear  that  their  racial  characteristics 
were  by  no  means  identical;  that  the  man  who  claimed 
superiority  had  finer  features,  and  perhaps  a  somewhat 
lighter  complexion,  suggesting  that  ethnic  differences  had, 
very  likely,  something  to  do  with  caste  distinctions. 

As  examples  more  or  less  typical  of  the  working  of  the 
Hindu  caste  system,  as  seen  by  the  outsider,  I  may  here 
narrate  the  following  incidents. 

In  a  notebook  of  mine,  now  many  years  old,  I  find 
recorded  an  event  which  occurred  during  a  visit  I  paid  to 
the  town  of  Coconada,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Godavery 
Kiver.  A  serious  disturbance  had  taken  place  there  because 
some  wealthy  natives  of  the  caste  of  fishermen  had  presumed 
to  ride  in  palanquins,  a  privilege  from  which  they  were 
debarred  by  immemorial  custom.  While  discussing  this 
riot  and  the  peculiar  ideas  underlying  it,  a  European  official 

36 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

who  knew  that  part  of  the  country  well,  assured  me  that 
pariahs  had  often  to  stand  for  hours  at  a  ferry  before  they 
could  get  the  opportunity  of  crossing,  since  one  of  these 
inferior  beings  dare  not  enter  the  same  boat  with  a 
Brahman ;  and  he  supported  his  statement  by  the  following 
anecdote : — 

Watching  the  passengers  disembark  from  a  ferry-boat, 
my  friend  observed  a  Brahman  run  in  an  excited  manner 
up  to  a  woman  who,  shrinking  timidly  from  observation, 
was  evidently  trying  to  conceal  herself  behind  the  throng 
of  people  who  had  just  left  the  boat.  Ofif  went  the 
Brahman's  slipper  as  he  reached  the  woman,  and  he  struck 
her  repeatedly  with  it;  nor  was  it  till  the  European  had 
interfered  personally,  and  forcibly,  that  he  desisted  from 
this  unmanly  assault.  The  victim  of  the  attack  was  a 
pariah  woman,  who  had  presumed  to  enter  the  same  boat 
with  a  man  of  the  sacerdotal  caste.  That  was  the  serious 
crime  for  which  she  received  public  chastisement,  with  the 
approval,  no  doubt,  of  all  Hindu  onlookers. 

Temporary  contamination  from  the  mere  touch  of  a 
European  may  be  experienced  by  a  high-caste  Brahman, 
although  such  tainture  may  under  existing  political  con- 
ditions be  lightly  faced  for  personal  ends.  Professor  Sir 
Monier  "Williams  recording  his  experiences  of  travel  in 
India  says:  "I  may  mention,  in  illustration,  that  I  often 
wondered,  when  in  India,  why  certain  great  Pandits  pro- 
posed calling  on  me  very  early  in  the  morning,  till  I  found 
out  accidentally  that  by  coming  before  bathing  they  were 
able  afterwards  to  purify  themselves  by  religious  ablutions 
from  the  contamination  incurred  in  shaking  hands  and 
talking  with  me."  ^ 

On  this  point  a  Bengali  Brahman  writes :  "  The  orthodox 
Hindu's  prejudices  are  such,  that  after  sitting  on  the  same 
carpet  with  a  Mahomedan  or  a  Christian  friend,  or  shaking 
hands  with  such  a  person,  he  has  to  put  off  his  clothes,  and 
to  bathe,  or  sprinkle  his  person  with  the  holy  wat^r  of  the 
Ganges."  ^ 

One  feature   of   the  Hindu  caste  system  which  early 

^  Modern  India  (1878),  p.  182. 

^  Dr.  J.  N.  Bbattacharjee  Hindu,  Castes  and  Sects,  p.  121. 

37 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

attracts  the  attention  of  the  European  in  India,  is  the 
hereditary  character  of  many  handicrafts  and  occupations, 
and  much  too  hastily  it  is  often  concluded  that  all  black- 
smiths, for  example,  are  of  the  same  caste,  that  all 
potters  are  of  the  same  caste,  and  so  on.  But  that  this 
is  very  far  from  the  truth  cannot  be  too  emphatically 
affirmed.  All  who  follow  a  particular  industrial  calling  do 
not  necessarily  belong  to  the  same  caste.  However,  it  is 
true  that  a  common  occupation  or  trade  is  not  infrequently 
the  most  evident  bond  of  union  in  a  local  Hindu  caste  or 
sub-caste,  and  that  the  status  in  the  caste  scale  of  such  an 
occupational  group  is  largely  dependent  upon  the  nature  of 
its  calling,  that  is  whether  highly  skilled  or  not,  whether 
clean  or  otherwise. 

Voyaging  along  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Indian  Penin- 
sula in  1863,  I  noticed  a  considerable  number  of  natives 
embarking  in  a  ship  lying  in  the  roadstead  off  Coconada. 
They  were  mostly  of  the  hereditary  weaver  caste,  emigrating 
to  the  West  Indies.  I  ascertained  that  these  men  had  been 
thrown  out  of  employment  because  all  the  cotton  in  their 
own  country  was  being  bought  up  at  high  prices  and 
exported  to  feed  the  Lancashire  power-looms,  which  had 
been  deprived  by  the  prolonged  civil  war  in  the  United 
States  of  their  usual  supply  of  the  raw  material. 

It  was  to  me  a  very  interesting  fact  that  a  conflict  in 
distant  North  America  should  drive  Indian  weavers  to  find 
employment  beyond  the  sea,  and  occasion  their  emigration 
to  the  Western  world  itself,  where  the  cause  of  their  trouble 
lay. 

All  the  comments  about  this  emigration  which  I  heard 
at  the  time  pointed  to  the  irrationality  of  the  narrow  caste 
system,  which  alone  seemed  to  be  held  responsible  for  the 
abandonment  of  their  own  country  by  the  Indian  weavers. 
But  it  did  not  strike  me  then,  any  more  than  it  does  now, 
that  a  body  of  men  deprived  by  an  accident  or  a  calamity 
of  their  usual  employment,  whether  a  hereditary  one  or 
not,  can  quite  easily  take  up  some  other  vocation  near  home. 
Were  this  the  case  we  should  not  at  any  time  hear  of  labour 
troubles,  distress,  or  increase  of  pauperism  in  Western 
countries,  or  of  emigration  from  those  favoured  lands. 

38 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

Amongst  Hindus  commensalism  is  confined  to  the 
members  of  the  same  or  closely  allied  castes,  and  this  hard- 
and-fast  rule  restricting  commensation  has  given  rise  to 
many  others  affecting  the  preparation,  handling,  and  con- 
sumption of  food.  For  example:  A  Hindu's  meals  must 
as  a  rule  be  prepared  by  one  of  his  own  caste  or  by  a 
Brahman,  while  his  cooked  food,  and  water  for  his  drinking 
or  his  culinary  purposes,  if  touched  by  a  man  of  an  inferior 
caste,  become  unfit  for  consumption.  Fortunately  for  all 
concerned,  water  in  bulk,  as  in  rivers  and  tanks,  does  not 
get  contaminated  by  the  contact  of  the  inferior  castes. 

The  regulations  about  receiving  food  and  water  from  the 
hands  of  persons  of  alien  castes  are  not  precisely  the  same 
everywhere ;  in  fact  they  are  peculiar  to  each  endogamous 
group.  They  seem  complicated  if  we  take  them  in  the 
aggregate,  but  they  are  simple  enough  when  considered 
with  reference  to  any  one  particular  caste.  In  the  case  of 
persons  who  live  such  a  simple  life  as  the  Hindus  do,  the 
regulations  in  question  may  ordinarily  be  observed  without 
inconvenience.  But  when  they  are  disregarded,  trouble 
ensues. 

About  ten  or  twelve  years  ago  it  came  to  my  knowledge 
that  intense  excitement  prevailed  amongst  the  Kashmiri 
Brahmans,  usually  called  Pandits,  scattered  over  Northern 
India  from  Lucknow  to  Lahore,  and  had  extended  to  their 
homeland,  the  Happy  Valley  itself.  The  trouble  was  due 
to  the  infringement  of  certain  caste  regulations,  and  had 
separated  the  whole  community  into  opposing  camps.  One 
Vishnu  Pant,  a  Kashmiri  Pandit,  had  visited  England,  and 
by  so  doing  had  become  unclean,  and  had  consequently  been 
cut  off  from  communion  with  his  own  people.  On  his  return 
to  Lucknow,  however,  he  made  amends  for  his  serious  breach 
of  caste  requirements  by  the  prescribed  purificatory  ceremony, 
and  was  thereupon  admitted  by  certain  of  his  caste  mates 
into  communion  with  themselves,  that  is  to  say,  they  ate 
and  drank  with  him.  But  it  was  held  by  competent  persons 
that  the  lustration  had  not  been  performed  in  the  proper 
manner,  irregularly  perhaps,  or  too  hastily,  I  cannot  say ; 
and  those  Pandits  who  had  broken  bread  with  the  sinner 
were  at  once  oiUcasted,  and  not  only  they  but  also  all  others 

39 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

who  had  at  any  time  after  this  event  eaten  with  them.  The 
contamination  spread  like  the  "French  disease"  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  the  whole  community  of  Pandits  was  con- 
vulsed with  alarm  and  horror.  Families  got  cut  off  from 
one  another,  and  even  in  the  same  household  the  fission  was 
so  pronounced  that  the  father  perhaps  would  not  receive 
food  from  his  own  son's  hand. 

The  purohits  (family  priests),  fearing  to  be  involved  in 
the  general  social  dSbdcle,  made  it  a  rule  not  to  receive  food 
from  either  the  Vishnu  Pantis,  or  from  their  opponents  the 
orthodox  party.  This  resolution  was,  of  course,  adopted  in 
order  that  they  might  be  able  to  keep  in  with  both  parties. 
I  am  not  aware  whether  the  embers  of  the  fire  kindled  years 
ago  have  now  grown  cold ;  but  this  I  know,  that  Kashmiri 
Pandits  have  visited  England  since  the  great  split  in  their 
community,  and  by  so  doing  have  probably  added  to  the 
former  social  confusion,  and  aggravated  the  domestic  troubles 
in  no  small  degree. 

It  would  be  by  no  means  surprising  if  these  dissensions 
gave  rise  to  new  sub-castes  as  has  occurred  in  many  similar 
cases  of  differences  within  a  caste. 

No  doubt  it  is  not  too  flattering  to  Western  conceit  to 
find  that  by  intercourse  with  Europeans  of  whatever  rank 
in  life,  the  high-caste  Hindu  becomes  impure,  at  least  for  a 
time.  Speaking  on  this  point,  an  urbane  Brahman,  probably 
more  polite  than  truthful,  once  said  to  me,  that  members 
of  his  caste  looking  upon  Europeans  as  a  superior  race,  as 
indeed  one  of  the  same  rank  as  themselves,  would  not  have 
objected  to  admit  them  to  their  own  privileges  had  the 
Europeans  not  contaminated  themselves  by  eating  beef,  by 
the  employment  of  cooks  of  all  castes,  and  by  allowing 
themselves  to  be  touched  by  men  and  women  of  even  the 
lowest  castes. 

The  exigencies  of  political  conditions,  and  the  dictates  of 
self-interest  tend,  as  time  goes  by,  to  make  the  offence  of 
social  intercourse  with  Europeans  less  heinous  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Hindus  than  formerly,  and  the  lapse  from  a  state  of 
purity  caused  thereby  is,  at  any  rate  amongst  the  higher 
classes,  readily  condoned  now.  The  purificatory  ceremonies 
necessary  in  such  cases  for  the  complete  rehabilitation  of  a 

40 


CASTE   IN   INDIA 

man  of  i-ank  would  seem  to  be  of  a  rather  perfunctory  char- 
acter, if  we  may  judge  from  the  following  casual  entry  by 
the  Maharajah  of  Bobbili  in  his  diary  after  his  visit  to 
Europe  in  1902  :— 

"  At  Bezwada  I  had  to  wait  the  whole  day  till  9.30  p.m. 
for  the  mail  train  from  Madras.  As  I  had  to  stay  so  long 
there  I  had  previously  summoned  the  necessary  Brahmans 
from  Bobbili  to  meet  me  there  to  perform  the  usual 
Prayaschittam  ceremony,  simply  to  satisfy  my  friends  and 
relations  as  I  did  after  my  previous  tour."  ^ 

I  am  not  unaware,  indeed  I  have  personal  knowledge  of 
the  fact,  that  there  are  many  educated  Hindus  who  deliber- 
ately, though  secretly,  break  through  the  rules  of  caste  when 
it  suits  them  to  do  so,  and  that  many  apparently  orthodox 
Babus  enjoy,  in  convenient  European  hotels  in  Calcutta  and 
elsewhere,  a  hearty  meal  of  forbidden  food,  cooked  and  served 
up  by  Muhammadans.  There  is  nothing  surprising  in  this. 
European  education  and  influence  has  to  an  appreciable 
extent  undermined  respect  for  such  caste  rules  as  interfere 
with  social  intercourse  between  the  ruling  and  subject  races. 

The  advanced  Babu,  especially  if  he  belong  to  a  low 
caste,  is  rather  proud  of  his  emancipation  from  old-world 
restrictions,  and  likes  to  think  that  if  he  cannot  eat  with 
the  Brahman,  he  can  do  so  with  the  Sahibs  who  rule  India. 
Besides,  Hindu  culinary  preparations  are  not  too  ta.sty,  and 
cannot  be  compared  with  Muslim  or  European  dishes. 
However,  the  time  for  o^jen  revolt  has  not  yet  come,  and 
only  covert  infringements  of  time-honoured  customs  can  be 
safely  attempted  even  by  those  whom  the  Native  Press  love 
to  refer  to  as  "  men  of  light  and  leading."  That  in  earlier 
times,  too,  a  Hindu,  or  even  a  Brahman  hon-vivant,  was  by 
no  means  averse  to  dine  with  non-Hindus  if  he  could  do 
so  without  prejudice  to  himself,  may  be  illustrated  by  the 
following  quaint  story  taken  from  The  Dahistan : — 

"  Azadah  (this  was  his  adopted  title)  is  a  Brahman. 
One  day  he  ate  at  table  with  some  Muselmans  and 
drank  wine.  They  said  to  him :  '  Thou  art  a  Hindu, 
and  thou  takest  thy  meal  in  common  with  Muselmans  ? 

^  The  Maharajah  of  Bobbili,  Diary  in  Euroite,  1902,  p.  101.  (Madras: 
printed  at  the  Addison  Press,  1903.) 

41 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

Your  people  never  eat  but  with  persons  of  their  own 
religion.'  Azadah  replied :  *  I  did  not  suppose  that  you 
were  Muselmans;  hereafter  I  will  at  eating  and 
drinking  keep  myself  separate  from  you.'  Another 
day  he  found  himself  again  drinking  wine  in  company 
with  them,  and  did  not  turn  his  head  from  the  meal ; 
during  the  repast  they  said  to  Azadah :  '  Yesterday  we 
made  ourselves  known  to  thee  as  Muselmans.'  He 
answered:  'I  knew  that  you  were  joking  with  me. 
God  forbid  that  you  should  be  Muselmans.' "  ^ 

How  the  origin  of  a  new  sub-caste  may  be  accounted  for 
by  those  interested  in  putting  as  favourable  a  construction 
upon  the  matter  as  possible,  is  instructively  illustrated  by 
the  story  of  the  origin  of  the  well-known  Pirali  Brahmans 
of  Bengal.  According  to  the  traditions  of  the  family,  it 
would  appear  that  during  the  period  of  Muhammadan  rule 
in  Bengal,  certain  Brahmans  had  been  invited  to  the  house 
of  a  Muslim  official  named  Pir  Ali,  and  while  there  became 
polluted  by  unavoidably  smelling  forbidden  food.  These  now 
degraded  Brahmans  were  henceforth  known  as  Piralis,  and 
their  descendants,  although  often  in  possession  of  great  wealth 
and  influence,  have  somehow  never  been  able  to  recover  the 
original  caste  status  of  the  family .^  I  should  add  that 
although  the  legend  I  have  referred  to  may  be  acceptable 
to  the  Piralis  themselves,  and  may  satisfy  a  credulous 
public,  it  is,  as  Dr.  Bhattacharjee  has  pointed  out,  by  no 
means  deserving  of  credence,  as  even  the  voluntary  eating 
of  forbidden  food  is  not,  according  to  the  Shastras,  an 
inexpiable  offence.^ 

As  we  have  seen,  the  caste  regulations  for  the  avoidance 
of  personal  contact  with  inferiors  and  non-Hindus,  as  well 
as  the  rules  limiting  the  families  and  persons  with  whom  it 
is  lawful  to  partake  of  food,  or  from  whom  it  may  be 
received,  are  strict  enough.  Yet  the  preservation  of  caste 
and  the  caste  system  depends  more  upon  the  strict  ob- 
servance of  certain  prescribed  nuptial  laws  than  upon 
adherence  to  the  rules  regulating  ordinary  social  inter- 
course with  outsiders.     Amongst  Hindus  the  jus  connubii 

^  The  Dabisian,  translated  by  Sliea  and  Troyer,  vol.  ii.  p.  114. 
'^  S.  C.  Bose,  Tfie  Hindoos  as  they  are,  pp.  171-174. 
^  Hindu  Castes  and  Sects,  p.  120. 
42 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

of  each  caste  is  very  rigid,  and  any  breach  of  it  is  a  most 
serious  oifence.  Two  rules  which  hold  good  generally 
throughout  the  caste  system  are  that  marriages  may  be 
contracted  only  between  members  of  the  same  caste;  but 
that  such  alliances  may  not  be  made  within  one  family, 
or,  as  M,  Senart  puts  it :  "  La  loi  de  la  caste  .  .  .  est  une  loi 
d'endogamie  par  rapport  a  la  caste,  d'exogamie  par  rapport  a 
lafamille.    Dans  ces  termes  vagues,  elle  est  ahsolue."^ 

The  field  of  selection  for  a  bride  or  a  bridegroom  being 
within  the  caste,  or  even  sub-caste,  it  has  been  prudently 
left  entirely  to  the  parents  to  conclude  the  necessary 
nuptial  contracts,  while  the  parties  primarily  concerned 
are  still  mere  children  without  any  personal  preferences. 
Marriage  being  imperative  in  the  case  of  every  Hindu, 
and  the  field  of  selection  being  restricted  by  the  caste 
regulations,  the  choice  of  a  bride  or  a  bridegroom  is  often 
a  real  and  pressing  difficulty  which  has  produced  the 
marriage-broker,  whose  knowledge  of  the  genealogy  of 
Hindu  families,  their  means,  and  their  eligible  unwedded 
offspring,  is  at  the  service  of  anxious  parents  whose 
interests  are  his  own. 

But  even  under  the  most  careful  management  and  most 
comprehensive  safeguards,  irregularities  will  occur,  and  may 
lead  to  far-reaching  consequences.  In  this  connection,  the 
following  extract  from  an  Indian  newspaper  ^  may  be  both 
interesting  and  informing : — 

"FissiPAROUS  Hinduism, — Writing  of  the  excom- 
munication of  three  hundred  Bombay  Bhattias  who  had 
married  wives  from  among  the  Bhattias  of  Hardwar, 
the  Indian  Social  Reformer  says :  '  The  incident  is 
interesting  as  an  instance  before  our  very  eyes  of 
how  new  sub-castes  have  been  formed  in  such  large 
numbers  in  India.  It  is  absurd  to  speak  of  excom- 
municating three  hundred  families.  What  has  happened 
is  that  a  number  of  Bhattias  with  Bombay  wives  have 
refused  to  have  social  intercourse  with  a  number  of 
Bhattias  with  Hardwar  spouses.  It  is  not  alleged 
that  the  Hardwar  marriages  are  invalid  according  to 
,     the  Hindu  law,  so  that  what  the  conservative  Bhattias 

'  Les  Castes  dans  VIiuU,  p.  27. 

=*  Pimieer  Mail  (Allahabad),  5tli  Jnne  1903. 

43  ■ 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

resent  is  practically  the  loss  of  custom.  The  three 
hundred  heroes  of  this  matrimonial  Thermopylae  will, 
of  course,  form  a  new  caste,  which  in  the  course  of  the 
next  twenty  years  would  trace  its  origin  to  immemorial 
antiquity.' " 

/     Amongst  Hindus  mixed  marriages   entail  serious  dis- 

Advantages  on  the  offspring  of  such  unions.     In  the  case 

pf   a   Brahman   woman  stooping   to   marry  a   Sudra,  her 

hildren    become    Chandalas,  mere    outcasts.     This  is,   of 

ourse,    consonant    with    universal    practice;    for    in    all 

countries  men  visit  with  the  greatest  social  penalties  the 

women  of  their  own  class  who  prefer  to  mate  with  men 

\  of  inferior  degree.     In  Hindu  society,  the  Brahmans  having 

been  the  lawmakers,  did  their  utmost  to  keep  their  women 

to   themselves.     They   did   not   restrict  their  own   choice 

quite  so  stringently,  permitting  themselves  originally  one 

wife  from  ecich  of  the  four  primitive  castes  already  referred 

to ;  though  this  privilege  is  no  longer  admitted. 

How  Europeans  stand  with  respect  to  the  Indian 
caste  system  and  its  marital  privileges,  will  be  apparent 
from  the  following  extract  from  a  paper  conducted  by 
Indians : — 

i 

I  "  The  Hindu  or  Mahommedan  father  is  not  yet  born 

I  who  would  consent  to  bestow  his  daughter  upon  even 
the  son  of  an  English  peer,  who,  in  spite  of  an  uninter- 
rupted descent  from  Norman  brigands,  is  only  a  mlechha 
or  a  Jcafu'  carrying  pollution  in  his  very  touch."  ^ 

Any  one  long  resident  in  India  may,  occasionally,  come 
upon  a  picturesque  group  of  persons  of  the  lower  classes 
seriously  discussing  some  question  of  seemingly  great  in- 
terest to  themselves,  and  learn  that  it  was  a  sort  of  caste 
tribunal  assembled  for  the  trial  of  one  or  more  of  the 
members  for  some  breach  of  the  prescribed  or  customary 
caste  laws.  The  elders  under  the  guidance  of  a  president 
would  take  evidence,  examine  witnesses,  hear  what  the 
accusers  and  accused  had  to  say,  and  decide  accordingly. 

^  Rais  and  Rayyet,  quoted  in  Civil  and  Military  Gazette  (Lahore),  26th 
September  1884. 

44 


CASTE   IN   INDIA 

The  court  might  be  assembled  on  the  side  of  a  quiet  road 
under  a  few  shady  trees,  or  in  the  open  maidan.  As  likely 
as  not  the  case  under  consideration  might  be  one  touching 
;  the  infidelity  of  a  wife,  and  the  culpability  of  her  husband, 
for  surely  the  man  who  cannot  rule  his  own  house  deserves 
punishment.  If  found  guilty,  the  sentence  of  the  assembly 
j  {jpanchayat)  of  his  caste-mates  would  probably  be  that  the 
culprit  be  debarred  from  all  social  intercourse  with  his 
brethren,  not  to  eat,  drink,  or  smoke  with  them,  until  he 
shall  have  confessed  his  fault,  promised  to  do  better  in 
future,  humihated  himself  before  the  elders,  and  presented 
them  with  certain  gifts.  When  these  conditions  had  been 
duly  fulfilled,  the  delinquent  would  probably  be  required 
to  provide  a  feast  for  his  caste-mates,  who,  by  partaking 
of  such  feast  in  his  company,  i.e.  eating  and  drinking 
with  him,  would  testify  publicly  that  he  was  readmitted 
to  the  privileges  of  the  community.  Occasionally,  though 
not  so  much  amongst  the  lowest  classes,  charity  to  the 
Brahmans  would  not  be  forgotten. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  in  all  cases,  whether 
serious  or  trifling,  the  penalties  imposed  would  be  pro- 
portioned to  the  enormity  of  the  offence  committed,  as 
measured  by  caste  standards,  and  might  range  from  a  mere 
reprimand  to  final  expulsion  from  the  community. 

The  system  of  panchayats  which  has  flourished  for  ages 
has  no  doubt  helped  very  considerably  to  keep  alive  an 
interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  hrddri  (caste-brotherhood)  on 
the  part  of  every  one  of  its  members,  and  has  thus  aided  in 
the  perpetuation  of  caste  as  an  institution  of  almost  vital 
importance  to  the  Hindus.  That  the  system  of  pancJuiyats 
must  encourage  espionage  and  intermeddling  is  obvious, 
but  its  value  as  a  force  for  the  maintenance  of  a  better 
moral  standard  and  for  the  strict  observance  of  caste 
customs,  is  undeniable.  Nor  are  the  functions  of  the 
panchayat  always  those  of  a  police:  it  is  sometimes 
appealed  to  for  advice  or  approval  in  cases  of  adoption 
and  marriage  contracts. 

Having  stated  most  of  the  salient  features  of  the 
caste  system  as  they  come  under  the  observation  of 
the  European  in  India,   I  now  sum  up  more  specifically 

45 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

what  constitutes  a  serious  breach  of  caste  rules,  and 
what  is  involved  in  the  penalty  of  absolute  exclusion 
from  caste. 

On  both  these  points,  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  a 
learned  Hindu  writer,  a  Brahman  by  caste,  and  a  specialist 
in  regard  to  the  subject  in  question* 

"Exclusion  from  caste,"  he  says,  "  would  result  from  any 
of  the  following  acts : 

"  1.  Embracing  Christianity  or  Mahomedanism. 

"  2.  Going  to  Europe  or  America. 

"  3.  Marrying  a  widow. 

"  4.  Publicly  throwing  away  the  sacred  thread. 

"  5.  Publicly  eating  Kachi  food  cooked  by  a  Mahomedan, 
Christian,  or  low-caste  Hindu. 

"  6.  Publicly  eating  beef,  pork,  or  fowl. 

"  7.  Officiating  as  a  priest  in  the  house  of  a  very  low- 
class  Sudra. 

"  8.  By  a  female  going  away  from  home  for  an  immoral 
purpose. 

"  9.  By  a  widow  becoming  pregnant." 

"  In  the  villages,"  adds  the  same  writer,  "  the  friendless 
and  the  poor  people  are  sometimes  excluded  from  caste  for 
other  offences,  as,  for  instance,  adultery,  incest,  eating 
forbidden  food  and  drinking  forbidden  liquors.  But  when 
the  offender  is  an  influential  personage,  or  is  influentially 
connected,  no  one  thinks  of  visiting  him  with  such 
punishment."  ^ 

The  ceremony  of  expulsion  from  caste,  as  prescribed  in 
the  laws  of  Manu,  is  a  solemn  and  imposing  proceeding,  meant 
to  symbolise  the  living  death  of  the  outcast.  According 
to  the  lawgiver,  the  condemned  man's  relatives  and  connec- 
tions should  assemble  on  the  evening  of  an  "  unlucky  day  " 
and  offer,  as  if  to  his  manes,  a  libation  of  water,  a  priest 
and  the  culprit's  gu7'u  (spiritual  guide)  being  present. 
As  at  a  Hindu  funeral,  a  pot  of  water  should  be  solemnly 
broken,  not,  however,  by  the  nearest  of  kin,  but  by  a  slave 
girl.  After  this  act  the  assembly  should  disperse,  each 
individual  present  at  the  ceremony  being  regarded  as  impure 
for  one  day. 

^  J.  N.  Bhattacharjee,  M.A.,  D.L.,  Hindu  Castes  attd  Sects,  p.  17. 
46 


CASTE  IN   INDIA 

Little  imagination  is  needed  to  realise  how  painfully 
affecting  and  impressive  such  a  rite  would  appear  to  the 
kith  and  kin  of  the  man  thus  ostracised. 

The  nature  of  the  penalty  of  exclusion  from  caste  is 
thus  explained : 

"  When  a  Hindu  is  excluded  from  caste — 

"  1.  His  friends,  relatives,  and  fellow-townsmen  refuse 
to  partake  of  his  hospitality. 

"2.  He  is  not  invited  to  entertainments  in  their 
houses. 

"3.  He  cannot  obtain  brides  or  bridegrooms  for  his 
children. 

"  4.  Even  his  own  married  daughters  cannot  visit  him 
without  running  the  risk  of  being  excluded  from 
caste. 

"  5.  His  priest,  and  even  his  barber  and  washerman, 
refuse  to  serve  him. 

"  6.  His  fellow-castemen  sever  their  connection  with  him 
so  completely  that  they  refuse  to  assist  him  even 
I  at  the  funeral  of  a  member  of  his  household. 

\     "  7.  In  some   cases   the  man   excluded  from  caste  is 
\  debarred  access  to  the  public  temples."  ^ 

Where  the  rules  are  so  explicit  it  follows,  of  course, 
that  means  are  duly  provided,  as  indeed  we  have  already 
seen,  by  which  the  offender  against  caste  rules  may  expiate 
his  errors  or  misfortunes  and  so  recover  his  caste-status. 
These  means  are  the  performance  of  prescribed  religious 
rites,  and  purificatory  ceremonies,  the  feasting  of  Brahmans 
and  bestowing  suitable  presents  on  them,  and  last,  but  not 
least,  banqueting  the  members  of  his  own  caste. 

Necessarily  readmission  to  the  privileges  of  caste  under 
such  conditions  means  the  expenditure  of  money,  often  a 
very  considerable  amount  of  money,  and  makes  it  compara- 
tively easy  only  for  the  rich  man  to  brave  the  risks  of 
breaking  caste  rules.  Of  one  well-known  and  not  over- 
scrupulous Bengali  millionaire  it  is  related  that,  "  when  the 
subject  of  caste  was  discussed,  he  emphatically  said  that 

'According  to  the  Smritis,  "Outcasted  persons  have  no  share  in 
inheritance."  (Dr.  J.  Wilson,  CasU,  vol.  i.  p.  403.)  But  this  law  is  not 
recognised  by  the  British  Government.    . 

47 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

'  caste  was  in  his  iron  chest,'  the  meaning  of  which  was 
that  money  has  the  power  of  restoring  caste."  ^ 

On  the  other  hand,  infringements  of  caste  rules  by  the 
poor  bring  upon  the  delinquents  terrible  hardships,  driving 
many  men  and  women  to  crime  and  even  to  suicide. 

Amongst  the  minor  penances  prescribed  for  breaches 
of  caste  rules,  the  following  (taken  from  Dr.  Wilson's  Caste 
in  India)  may  be  mentioned  as  examples : — 

The  Sdntapana — Fasting  for  a  night  and  a  day  and 
swallowing  the  panchagavya,  the  five  products  of  the  cow — 
milk,  butter,  curd,  etc. 

The  Piajapatya — Fasting  for  three  days,  eating  for 
three  days;  abstaining  from  asking  anything  for  three 
days,  and  fasting  for  three  days. 

The  Krichchhra — Abstaining  from  water  for  twenty-one 
days. 

The  Paraha — Fasting  for  twelve  days. 

The  Tapta- Krichchhra — Drinking  hot  water,  milk,  and 
ghee  for  three  days  each. 

The  Yavamadhya  Chandrayana — Eating  the  first  day 
of  the  moon  one  mouthful  of  food ;  the  second  day,  two ; 
the  third,  three ;  and  so  on  till  full  moon,  when  the  supply 
is  to  be  lessened  by  a  mouthful  daily  till  a  new  moon 
occurs. 

The  Fipilika  Chandrayana.  In  this  the  procedure  pre- 
scribed in  the  last  case  is  reversed. 

^  S.  C.  Bose,  The  Hindoos  as  they  are,  p.  177. 


48 


CASTE  IN   miDlA— continued 

Section  II. — The  origin  and  development  of  the  caste  system  as 
explained  by  the  Pandits. 

CCOKDING  to  ancient  Hindu  Scriptures, 
there  are  but  four  varnas,  colours  or 
castes,  ranged  in  descending  scale  as 
follows : — 

1.  Brahmans — Priests  and  legislators. 

2.  KsJmtriyas — Eulers  and  warriors. 

3.  Vaisyas — Merchants,  herdsmen,  and  agriculturists. 

4.  Sudras — Handicraftsmen,    servitors,   domestics,  and 
the  rest- 
In  respect  to  the  duties  of  these  four  castes,  Manu,  the 

famous  Hindu  lawgiver,  says  : 

"To  Brahmans  the  Supreme  Being  assigned  the 
duties  of  reading  the  Veda  and  teaching  it,  of 
sacrificing,  of  assisting  others  to  sacrifice,  of  giving 
alms  and  of  receiving  gifts.  To  defend  the  people, 
to  give  alms,  to  sacrifice,  to  read  the  Veda,  to  shun 
the  allurements  of  sexual  gratification,  are  in  a  few 
words  the  duties  of  a  Kshatriya.  To  keep  herds 
of  cattle,  to  bestow  largesses,  to  sacrifice,  to  carry  on 
trade,  to  lend  at  interest,  are  the  duties  of  a  Vaisya. 
One  principal  duty  the  Supreme  Being  assigns  to  a 
Sudra,  namely,  to  serve  the  before-mentioned  classes 
without  depreciating  their  worth."  ^ 

The  three  first  of  the  above-named  castes,  embracing 
the  priests,  warriors,  merchants  and  agriculturists,  were  at 
some  subsequent  period  designated  dvija,  "  twice-born,"  and 
were  entitled  to  wear  a  sacred  thread  across  the  breast  and 
over  one  shoulder  as  a  badge  of  their  nobility.  They  also 
^  Manu,  i.  87-91. 
D  49 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

enjoyed  the  exclusive  privilege  of  studying  the  holy  Vedas, 
the  Sudras  being  permitted  neither  to  open  a  page  of  the 
sacred  book,  nor  even  to  listen  to  the  reading  thereof. 
All  strong  priesthoods  have,  for  very  good  reasons,  been 
averse  to  admit  the  masses  to  a  knowledge  of  their  sacred 
books,  and  the  Brahmans  in  shutting  out  the  Sudras  from 
all  knowledge  of  the  Vedas,  only  followed  the  usual  safe 
course  dictated  by  worldly  wisdom. 

Even  after  death  the  great  distinctions  of  caste  are  to 
be  maintained.  The  virtuous  Brahman  goes  to  the  abode 
of  Brahma ;  the  good  Kshatriya  to  that  of  Indra,  and  the 
worthy  Vaisya  to  that  of  the  Maruts,  and  the  dutiful  Sudra 
to  that  of  the  Gandharvas.^ 

To  give  the  imprimatur  of  divine  sanction  to  this 
convenient  arrangement,  a  myth  duly  found  its  way  into 
the  sacred  Veda  to  the  effect  that  in  the  beginning  the 
Brahmans  proceeded  from  the  mouth  of  the  Creator,  the 
Kshatriyas  from  his  arms,  the  Vaisyas  from  his  thighs,  and 
the  Sudras  or  servile  class  from  his  feet.^ 

Dissimilar  and  contradictory  accounts  of  the  origin  of 
the  four  castes  are  to  be  found  in  other  later  sacred  books 
of  the  Hindus,  but  they  do  not  appear  to  have  troubled  the 
placid  minds  of  the  Indians,  and  we  need  not  concern  our- 
selves with  them  here.^ 

It  has  obviously  been  to  the  interest  of  the  superior 
castes,  particularly  the  hereditary  priesthood,  to  strenuously 
and  persistently  uphold  the  integrity  of  the  system  just 
outlined ;  but,  even  so,  no  one  could  possibly  anticipate  the 
insolent  arrogance  with  which  the  Brahmans  have  asserted 
their  own  unapproachable  superiority  and  their  right  to 

^  Tlie  Markandaya  Puraua,  cited  by  Dr.  John  Wilson,  Indian  Caste, 
vol.  i.  p.  437. 

2  The  Parusha  sukta,  being  the  90th  hymn  of  the  10th  book  of  the 
Rig  Veda.  "This  celebrated  hymn,"  says  Dr.  Muir,  "contains,  as  far  as 
we  know,  the  oldest  extant  passage  which  makes  mention  of  the  fourfold 
origin  of  the  Hindu  race. " — Original  Sanskrit  Texts,  vol.  i.  p.  7. 

Writing  of  this  hymn  Professor  Max  Miiller  said  :  "There  can  be  little 
doubt,  for  instance,  that  the  90th  hymn  of  the  10th  book  ...  is 
modern  both  in  its  character  and  diction." — Quoted  by  Muir,  Original 
Sanskrit  Texts,  vol.  i.  p.  13. 

*  Muir,  Original  Sanskrit  Texts,  vol.  i.  pp.  138-140,  159,  160,  and 
220,  221. 

50 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

regulate  the  affairs  of  men,  for  it  is  surely  without  parallel 
in  human  history,  as  the  following  passages  from  Hindu 
Scriptures  will  show : — 

"  The  son  of  Ita  then  inquired :  Tell  me,  Vayu,  to 
whom  the  earth,  with  its  wealth,  rightfully  belongs,  to 
the  Brahman  or  the  Kshatriya  ?  Vayu  replied :  All 
this,  whatever  exists  in  the  world,  is  the  Brahman's 
property  by  right  of  primogeniture:  this  is  known  to 
those  who  are  skilled  in  the  laws  of  duty.  It  is  his 
own  which  the  Brahman  eats,  puts  on,  bestows.  He 
is  the  chief  of  all  the  castes,  the  first-born  and  the 
most  excellent.  Just  as  the  woman  when  she  has  lost 
her  (first)  husband,  takes  her  brother-in-law  for  a 
second:  so  the  Brahman  is  the  first  resource  in 
calamity ;  afterwards  another  may  arise  "  (Mahabharata, 
Santiparvam,  verses  2755  et  seq.). 

"No  blame  accrues  to  Brahmans  from  teaching 
or  sacrificing  or  from  receiving  money  in  any  other 
way ;  Brahmans  are  like  flaming  fire.  Whether  ill  or 
well  versed  in  the  Veda,  whether  untrained  or  ac- 
complished, Brahmans  must  never  be  despised,  like 
fires  covered  with  ashes.  Just  as  a  fire  does  not  lose 
its  purity  by  blazing  even  in  a  cemetery,  so  too, 
whether  learned  or  unlearned,  a  Brahman  is  a  gi'eat 
deity.  Cities  are  not  rendered  magnificent  by  ramparts, 
gates,  or  palaces  of  various  kinds  if  they  are  destitute 
of  excellent  Brahmans.  The  place  where  Brahmans, 
rich  in  the  Veda,  perfect  in  their  conduct,  and  austerely 
fervid,  reside,  is  (really)  a  city  {nagard).  Wherever 
there  are  men  abounding  in  Vedic  lore,  whether  it  be  a 
cattle-pen  or  a  forest,  that  is  called  a  city,  and  that  will 
be  a  sacred  locality"  (Vanaparvam,  13436  to  13540). 

"  Through  the  prowess  of  the  Brahmans  the  Asuras 
were  prostrated  on  the  waters;  by  the  favour  of  the 
Brahmans  the  gods  inhabit  heaven.  The  ether  cannot 
be  created ;  the  mountain  Hamavat  cannot  be  shaken, 
the  Ganga  cannot  be  stemmed  by  a  dam ;  the  Brahmans 
cannot  be  conquered  by  anyone  upon  earth.  The  world 
cannot  be  ruled  in  opposition  to  the  Brahmans ;  for  the 
mighty  Brahmans  are  the  deities  even  of  the  gods.  If 
thou  desire  to  possess  the  sea-girt  earth,  honour  them 
continually  with  gifts  and  with  service."  ^ 

In    the    Kriya- Yoga-Sara    of    the    Padma    Purana    it 
'  Muir,  Sanxkrii  TesOs,  vol.  i:  pp.  129,  130. 

51 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

is  said :  "  Whatever  good  man  bows  to  a  Brahman,  wor- 
shipping him  as  Vishnu,  is  blessed  with  long  life,  sons, 
fame  and  wealth.  .  .  .  The  bearer  of  a  drop  of  water  which 
has  been  in  contact  with  a  Brahman's  foot  has  all  the 
sins  of  his  body  thereby  destroyed.  Whoever  carries  on 
his  head  the  holy  things  touched  by  a  Brahman's  foot, 
verily,  verily  I  say,  he  is  freed  from  all  sins."^ 

As  a  result  of  these  extravagant  pretensions  we  find  the 
Brahman  ical  law  recommending  liberality  to  the  Brahmans 
as  the  highest  of  virtues,  and  at  the  same  time  conferring 
upon  that  favoured  caste  remarkable  rights  and  privileges, 
as  compared  with  the  inferior  castes.  For  criminal  offences 
a  graduated  scale  of  punishments  is  laid  down  by  which  the 
Brahman  is  let  off  with  the  least  penalties,  the  Kshatriya 
fares  better  than  the  Vaisya  and  the  Vaisya  than  the  Sudra. 

Under  no  circumstances  whatever  may  a  king  order  the 
I  execution  of  a  Brahman.^ 

The  immeasurable  inferiority  of  the  Sudras  is  illustrated 
'by  the  law  which  prescribes  that  a  man  of  the  twice-born 
castes  having  intercourse  with  a  Sudra  woman  is  to  be 
banished  ;  a  Sudra  having  connection  with  a  woman  of  the 
superior  castes  is  to  be  put  to  death. 

It  is  needless  to  add  that  these  ordinances  are  now  as 
inoperative  in  India  as  are  the  Levitical  laws  in  Christendom  ; 
yet  the  study  of  them  is  instructive  as  throwing  light  upon 
the  past.  But  it  may  be  well  to  realise  in  connection  with 
these  obsolete  Hindu  laws  that  class  or  caste  privileges  have 
been  common  enough  in  Europe,  and  that  the  feelings  which 
dictated  the  sanguinary  law  against  a  Sudra  cohabiting  with 
an  Arya  woman  finds  practical  expression  even  now  in  the 
cruel  lynching  of  negroes  for  offences  against  white  women 
in  the  great  American  Eepublic,  where  all  are  equal  and 
where  all  are  free  ! 

From  such  facts  and  legends  regarding  the  origin  and 
working  of  the  institution  of  caste  as  are  revealed  some- 

*  Dr.  John  Wilson,  Indian  Caste,  vol.  i.  p.  426. 

'  This  recalls  to  mind  the  old  English  law  according  to  which  priests, 
deacons,  and  clerks  condemned  to  death  could  be  claimed  by  the  bishop 
of  the  diocese,  and  so  escape  punishment. — John  Brady,  Clavis  Calendaria, 
vol.  1.  p.  363. 

52 


CASTE   IN   INDIA 

times  deliberately,  sometimes  quite  casually  in  the  literature 
of  the  Brahmans  from  the  ancient  Vedas,  through  the 
Brahmanas,  Upanishads,  and  Sutras  to  the  famous  Indian 
Epics — the  Kamayana  and  Mahabharata — may  be  learned 
how  insidiously  the  Brahmans  magnified  their  own 
importance  and  privileges,  and  how  their  arrogant  self- 
assertion  often  brought  them  into  serious  conflict  with  the 
Kshatriyas,  who,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  priests,  were 
entirely  extirpated  by  Parasharama  because  of  their  opposi- 
tion to  the  Brahmans.  The  legend  to  this  effect  is  accepted 
by  many  living  Pandits,  who  maintain  that  no  lineal  de- 
scendants of  the  original  Kshatriya  caste  are  existing  at  the 
present  day.  It  is  admitted,  however,  in  the  Mahabharata, 
that  the  Kshatriya  race  in  a  renewed  form  resulted  from 
intercourse  between  Brahmans  and  Kshatriya  women  who 
were  evidently  not  exterminated  along  with  their  men- 
folk. 

That  the  four  original  castes,  if  ever  there  were  such, 
have  not  been,  and  indeed  could  not  have  been,  kept  pure, 
has  been  recognised  by  the  Hindus  from  the  remotest 
antiquity,^  and  the  literature  of  the  past,  especially  the 
Epics,  present  us  with  pictures  of  life  in  the  heroic  age 
when  the  functions  of  the  primitive  castes  seem  already 
strangely  confused,  Brahmans,  Vaisyas,  and  even  Sudras 
being  amongst  the  most  distinguished  military  leaders 
in  the  fratricidal  war  which  came  to  an  end  on  the 
bloody  battlefield  of  Kurakshatra.  Nor  is  the  idea  of 
the  exercise  of  even  kingly  power  by  a  Sudra  unknown 
to  the  law  -  books.^  Changes  of  occupation  amongst 
Hindus  are  also  casually  recorded  in  the  old  Buddhist 
literature.^ 

It  is  also  admitted  that  the  priestly  class  became  sub- 
divided into  several  sub-castes  according  to  their  supposed 
respective  patriarchs  (gotras),  and  that  another  cause  of 
fission  was  the  adoption  by  distinct  families  of  the  duty  of 
collecting,  arranging,  and   transmitting   the   various   parts 

'  Muir,  Saiiskrit  Texts,  vol.  i.  pp.  135-137  and  281-283. 
^  M.  Emile  Senart,  Les  Castes  dans  Flnde,  pp.  118,  119. 
^  The  Jatakas,  cited  by  Professor  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhist  India, 
pp.  56,  57. 

53 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

(known  as  shdkds  or  branches  ^)  of  the  Vedas ;  and  of 
conducting  the  different  ceremonials,  particularly  sacrifices 
connected  with  their  ancient  Scriptures. 

According  to  the  orthodox  view,  a  great  many  well- 
established  castes  owe  their  origin  to  regular  or  irregular 
alliances  between  members  of  the  four  primitive  castes,  and 
between  the  descendants  of  such  unions.  A  table  of  the 
parentage  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-one  such  mixed  and 
degraded  castes  are  given  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Wilson  in 
his  book  on  Indian  Caste.^ 

Hindus  further  believe  that  irregularities  and  confusion 
have  resulted  in  some  cases  from  men  of  a  lower  caste 
pretending  to  belong  to  a  superior  one ;  e.g.,  Kshatriyas  and 
Vaisyas  having  set  up  claims  to  Brahmanhood,  and 
obtained  a  more  or  less  doubtful  footing  in  the  great 
sacerdotal  caste.  But  after  the  above-mentioned  mythical 
and  other  causes  assigned  in  explanation  of  the  origination 
of  the  primitive  or  of  new  castes  have  been  allowed  for, 
there  remain  many  features  of  the  existing  system  which 
require  elucidation,  and  will  repay  investigation, 

^  "  A  shdkd  (branch),  it  must  be  venienibered,  is  a  definite  literary  Vedic 
treasure  as  held  in  the  memory  of  its  possessors  and  taught  by  repetition 
to  others." — Dr.  John  Wilson,  Indian  Caste,  vol.  ii.  p.  13. 

2  Vol.  i.  pp.  65-70. 


54 


CASTE   IN   mDlA— continued 

Section"  III. — The  existing  Hindu  caste  system  contrasted  with  the 
theoretical  system  of  the  old  books. 


^ASTE,  as  we  have  seen,  is  mentioned  in  some  of 
the  oldest  Hindu  Scriptures ;  but  in  view  of  the 
unreliability  of  Indian  texts  and  the  uncertain- 
ties of  Indian  chronology,  it  may  be  worth 
stating  that  the  Greeks  noticed  the  existence 
of  the  caste  system  in  India,  and  that  Megas- 
thenes,  Greek  ambassador  at  the  court  of  the  Hindu  King 
Sandracottus  (B.C.  306-298),  enumerates  seven  Hindu  castes 
as  follows  :  ^ — 

1.  Philosophers. 

2.  Husbandmen. 

3.  Shepherds  and  Hunters. 

4.  Labourers,  or  those  who  work  at  trades,  or  vend  wares. 

5.  Fighting-men. 

6.  Inspectors  charged  with  the  supervision  of  all  that 

goes  on. 

7.  Counsellors  and  Assessors  of  the  King. 

At  the  present  day  instead  of  the  four  castes  of  the 
:  Hindu  Scriptures,  or  the  seven  referred  to  by  Megasthenes, 
:We  have  something  very  different,  for  no  less  than  "  2378 
main  castes  and  tribes  and  43  races  or  nationalities" 
are  included  in  the  tables  appended  to  the  Report  on 
the  last  Census  of  India.  Everywhere,  throughout  the 
country,  we  find  at  the  top  of  the  social  scale  the  Brahmans 
as  of  yore ;  but  no  longer  of  pure  Aryan  race,  and  some- 
times far  more  akin  to  the  Dravidian  or  Mongolian  than  the 
Aryan  stock  from  which  they  claim  descent.  Further,  we 
'  Dr.  J.  W.  M'Crindle,  Ancient  India,  pp.  47-53. 

55" 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

find  the  Brahmans  represented  by  a  variety  of  sub-castes 
between  which  intermarriage  is  not  allowed.  Below  the 
Brahmans  we  find  a  medley  of  castes  wearing  the  cord 
which  is  the  special  and  distinguishing  badge  of  the  twice- 
born,  thereby  claiming  to  be,  and  popularly  accepted  as,  the 
modern  representatives  of  the  traditional  Kshatriya  and 
Vaisya  castes. 

"  The  ancient  designation  Sudra,"  writes  Mr. 
Eisley,  "  finds  no  great  favour  in  modern  times, 
and  we  can  point  to  no  group  that  is  generally 
recognised  as  representing  it.  The  term  is  used 
in  Bombay,  Madras,  and  Bengal  to  denote  a  con- 
siderable number  of  castes  of  moderate  respectability, 
the  higher  of  whom  are  considered  'clean'  Sudras, 
while  the  precise  status  of  the  lower  is  a  question 
which  lends  itself  to  endless  controversy.  At  this 
stage  of  the  grouping  a  sharp  distinction  may  be 
noticed  between  Upper  India  and  Bombay  and  Madras. 
In  Kajputana,  the  Punjab,  the  United  Provinces,  the 
Central  Provinces,  Bengal  and  Assam,  the  grade  next 
below  twice-born  rank  is  occupied  by  a  number  of 
castes  from  whose  hands  Brahmans  and  members  of 
the  higher  castes  will  take  water  and  certain  kinds 
of  sweetmeats.  Below  these  again  is  a  rather  inde- 
terminate group  from  whom  water  is  taken  by  some  of 
the  higher  castes,  but  not  by  others.  Further  down 
where  the  test  of  water  no  longer  applies,  the  status  of 
a  caste  depends  on  the  nature  of  its  occupation  and  its 
habits  in  respect  to  diet.  There  are  castes  whose 
touch  defiles  the  twice-born,  but  who  do  not  commit 
the  crowning  enormity  of  eating  beef;  while  below 
these  again  in  the  social  system  of  Upper  India  are 
people  like  ChamSrs  and  Doms  who  eat  beef  and 
various  sorts  of  miscellaneous  vermin.  In  Western 
and  Southern  India  the  idea  that  the  social  status  of  a 
caste  depends  on  whether  Brahmans  will  take  water  and 
sweetmeats  from  its  members  is  unknown,  for  the 
higher  castes  will  as  a  rule  take  water  only  from 
persons  of  their  own  caste  and  sub-caste.  In  Madras 
especially  the  idea  of  ceremonial  pollution  by  the 
proximity  of  a  member  of  an  unclean  caste  has  been 
developed  with  much  elaboration.  Thus  the  table  of 
social  precedence  attached  to  the  Cochin  Eeport  shows 
that  while  a  Nayar  can  pollute  a  man  of  a  higher  caste 

56 


CASTE   IN  INDIA 

only  by  touching  him,  people  of  Kammalan  group, 
including  masons,  blacksmiths,  carpenters,  and  workers 
in  leather,  pollute  at  a  distance  of  24  feet,  toddy- 
drawers  (Iluvan  or  Tiyan)  at  36  feet,  Pulayan  or 
Cheruman  cultivators  at  48  feet,  while  in  the  case  of 
the  Paraiyan  (Pariahs)  who  eat  beef,  the  range  of 
pollution  is  stated  to  be  no  less  than  64  feet."  * 

A  large  number  of  castes  devoted  to  or  connected  with 
special  occupations  are  to  be  found  all  over  India,  and  have 
attracted  considerable  attention  from  Europeans,  so  much 
so  that  it  has  even  been  held  that  "  fimction  and  function 
only  was  the  foundation  upon  which  the  whole  caste  system 
of  India  was  built  up,"*  a  view  which  conflicts  with  the 
irrefragable  fact  that  of  no  occupational  or  trade  caste  can 
it  be  said  that  even  within  a  restricted  area  its  members 
enjoy  the  privilege  of  marrying  into  all  the  other  groups 
devoted  to  the  same  pursuit,  carried  on  in  exactly  the  same 
way.^ 

Changes  in  the  component  parts  of  the  vast  caste  system 
have  been,  and  continue  to  be,  far  more  common  and  natural 
than  is  generally  supposed.  Disintegration  and  reconstruc- 
tion have  been  going  on  perpetually.  Under  the  pressure 
of  circumstances  and  new  conditions,  the  number  of  social 
groups  is  always  changing,  and  their  boimdaries  are  ever 
shifting.  The  castes  of  to-day  are  not  necessarily  identical 
with  those  of  the  past,  even  the  comparatively  recent  past. 
No  doubt  from  the  earliest  times,  the  division  of  the  Indian 
population  into  caste  groups  has  been  a  noticeable  feature 
of  Hindu  society,  and  it  is  so  to-day ;  but  there  have  been 
endless  changes  in  the  component  parts  of  the  system 
which  is  not  and  never  has  been  more  permanent  than 
other  human  institutions.  Yet  the  idea  of  caste,  respect  for 
the  institution  and  its  recognition  as  an  indispensable  feature 
\of  Indian  society,  has  been  strong  and  persistent  amongst 
^pindus  from  remote  antiquity  up  to  the  present  day ;  and 
JBo  has  the  broad  principle  that  the  internal  affairs  of  each 

\  »  Census  of  India  JReport,  1901,  p.  540. 
»  Joha  C.  Nesfield,  M.  A.,  Brief  View  of  Cade  System  of  the  North-  Western 
Provinces  and  Ottde,  p.  38  (All&halMd,  1885). 
'  Census  cf  India  Report,  1901,  p.  553. 

57 


^  BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

caste  should  be  regulated  by  its  own  customary  law,  which 
even  the  king  should  uphold.^  Eevolts  there  have  been 
from  time  to  time,  and  in  another  book  -  I  have  pointed  out 
that  the  principle  of  caste  has  often  been  called  in  question 
in  India,  and  that,  as  a  rule,  the  Hindu  founders  of  new 
religious  sects  have  manifested  a  decided  hostility  to  the 
I  system  by  admitting  men  and  w^omen  of  all  castes  indis- 
Icriminately  into  these  communities  on  a  footing  of  equality ; 
ibut  that  the  practical  result  of  such  latitudinarianism  has, 
in  the  long-run,  been  merely  the  creation  of  new  castes,  and 
I  not  the  abrogation  of  the  system. 

My  plan  being  to  deal  merely  with  the  more  prominent 
characteristics  of  a  very  complex  system,  I  am  precluded 
from  entering  into  details  about  the  different  castes, 
their  organisation,  customs,  and  peculiarities.  But  since 
a  general  survey  of  the  Hindu  caste  system  of  to-day 
reveals  the  fact  that  on  the  whole  the  Brahmans  are  still, 
as  formerly,  the  venerated  spiritual  and  social  leaders  of 
the  people  in  most  parts  of  India,  certain  features  of  their 
present  constitution  may  well  arrest  our  attention  for  a 
moment. 

As  previously  stated,  the  Brahmans  do  not  now  form  a 
single  monogamous  caste,  if  ever  they  did  so.  Nor  do  they 
now  pursue  a  single  calling,  many  groups  or  sub-castes 
being  devoted  to  various  secular  occupations. 

Some  Brahman  sub-castes  have  arisen  owing  to  particular 
families  devoting  themselves,  as  spiritual  advisers  (gurus), 
to  special  sections  of  the  lay  community.  Thus  there  are 
several  such  sub-castes  amongst  the  Gujarati  Brahmans,  e.g. 
the  Kunhigors  who  act  as  gurus  to  the  agriculturists,  the 
Mochigors  who  look  after  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  shoe- 
makers, and  so  on.^ 

Brahmans  have  been,  and  are  still,  employed  in  all  State 
departments ;  they  are  throughout  the  country  engaged  in 
the  administration  or  practice  of  the  law  and  in  mercantile 
and  other  secular  pursuits.  Brahmans  serve  as  Sepoys  in 
the  Indian  Army,  and  some  have  fought  against  us  like  the 

'  M.  Emile  Senart,  Les  Castes  dans  Vlmde,  p.  117. 
^  The  Mystics,  Ascetics,  and  Saints  of  India. 
'  Dr.  J.  Wilson,  Indian  Caste,  vol.  ii.  p.  93. 

58 


CASTE   IN   INDIA 

famous  Tantia  Topi  and  the  still  more  famous  Eani  of 
Jhansi,  whose  names  are  indelibly  associated  with  the  great 
Sepoy  revolt  of  1857-58. 

Many  Brahman  tribes  till  the  soil  with  their  own  hands, 
as,  for  example,  the  Gaur  Brahmans  of  Delhi,  Rohtak, 
Gurgaon,  and  Karnal.  Others  live  by  trading,  and  great 
numbers  are  cooks  even  in  Sudra  households. 

In  Bengal  there  is  a  caste  of  Brahmans — known  as 
Kulins,  already  referred  to  an  page  28 — many  members  of 
which  seem  to  have  little  business  in  life  beyond  marrying 
and  marrying,  and  marrying  again,  an  unlimited  number  of 
times,  and  without  reference  to  age,  till  they  have  in  some 
cases  been  known  to  possess  as  many  as  350  wives.  They 
receive  a  substantial  pecuniary  consideration  with  each 
wife,  without  incurring  the  obligation  of  supporting  her. 
I  have  myself  heard  one  of  these  Kulin  Brahmans  say  that 
he  was  going  to  marry  another  wife,  and  ascertained  that 
he  contemplated  this  step  because  he  lacked  money  where- 
with to  complete  a  house  he  was  building  for  himself.  It 
is  fair  to  add  that  some  Kulin  Brahmans  do  not  exercise 
their  polygamous  privileges,  and  find  other  and  more 
honourable  modes  of  earning  a  living,  supporting  themselves, 
and  building  their  dwelling-houses. 

At  least  one  Brahman  caste  is  looked  upon  as  positively 
disreputable.  They  are  known  as  Bura  Brahmans  (evil 
Brahmans),  and  are  a  terror  to  the  people,  claiming  as  a 
right  the  clothing,  bedding,  and  lotah  (drinking  vessel)  of 
the  dead.  In  such  abhorrence  are  they  held  that  to  meet 
one  of  them  in  the  morning  is  regarded  as  a  very  bad  omen. 

The  missionary  Mr.  W.  Ward,  writing  about  a  century 
ago  of  the  Bengali  Brahmans  of  his  time,  says :  "  The 
Shastra  expressly  forbids  their  selling  milk,  iron,  lac,  salt, 
clarified  butter,  sesamum,  etc.,  yet  many  Brahmans  now 
deal  in  these  things  without  regard  to  the  Shastra,  or  the 
opinion  of  stricter  Hindus,  and  add  thereto  the  sale  of 
skins,  spirits,  and  flesh.  ...  I  have  heard  of  a  Brahman  at 
Calcutta  who  was  accustomed  to  procure  beef  for  the 
butchers ;  many  traffic  in  spirituous  liquors."  ^ 

1  A  View  of  the  History,  LilercUure,  and  Religion  of  the  Eindus,  vol.  i. 
pp.  85,  86. 

59" 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

With  the  diversity  in  their  avocations,  there  is  to  be 
found  a  corresponding  diversity  in  many  of  their  customs, 
arising  out  of  the  nature  of  their  occupations,  e.g.  Trigula 
Brahmans  who  are  employed  in  the  cultivation  of  the 
pepper-betel  do  not,  we  are  told,  hesitate  to  destroy  insects, 
which  other  Brahmans  would  not  do. 

In  the  matter  of  food  the  differences  between  the 
various  Brahman  castes  is  striking.  The  Javala  and 
Shenavi  Brahmans,  for  example,  eat  fish.  Several  castes 
amongst  the  Saraswata  Brahmans  eat  both  fish  and  flesh, 
the  Sakhtas  amongst  them  indulging  in  spirits  also.  The 
Gouda  Brahmans  of  Central  India  also  partake  of  animal 
food ;  while  the  Nepalese  Brahmans  "  eat  goats,  sheep,  and 
some  kinds  of  wild  fowl,  but  abstain  from  venison."  ^ 

Notwithstanding  that  some  Brahmans,  as  just  instanced, 
do  eat  animal  food,  we  may  take  it  as  a  general  fact  that 
abstention  from  heef  is  a  requirement  applicable  to  all 
Hindus  in  these  days,  though  it  was  not  so  in  the  remote 
past. 

So  much  for  the  Brahmans.  If  we  pursue  a  like 
inquiry  with  respect  to  the  present-day  occupations  of 
the  castes  which  claim  to  represent  the  traditional 
Kshatriyas,  we  shall  find  similar  diversities,  showing  that 
the  caste  system  of  to-day,  and  its  practical  working, 
differs  greatly  from  the  ideal — it  could  never  have  been 
anything  more — which  the  Hindu  lawgiver  desired  to 
place  under  the  sanction  of  Holy  Writ.  Yet  caste  is  still 
the  most  distinctive  feature  in  Indian  life,  each  caste  being 
a  hereditary  group  of  families,  more  often  than  not 
ethnologically  related,  bound  together  by  common  religious 
and  social  practices,  and,  in  many  cases,  devoted  to  a 
distinctive  trade  or  occupation.  For  every  Hindu  the 
customs  of  his  caste  determine  the  details  of  the  social 
intercourse  he  may  have  within  the  group  or  with  out- 
siders, and  limits  strictly  and  inexorably  for  each  man 
or  woman  the  possible  field  of  matrimonial  alliances. 
Tampering  with  caste  rules  is,  in  the  case  of  the  wealthy 

^  For  the  facts  stated  above  regarding  the  avocations  and  food  of  various 
Brahman  sub-castes,  I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  John  Wilson,  Indian  Caste,  vol. 
ii.  pp.  26,  27,  30,  68,  134,  137,  163,  and  198. 

6o 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

and  better  educated,  becoming  more  frequent  perhaps 
than  formerly,  but  still,  for  the  country  as  a  whole,  caste 
retains  its  vitality,  a  fact  which  will  not,  however,  surprise 
us  if  we  clearly  grasp  the  idea  that  the  customs  of  each 
caste  have  been  derived  from  toithin,  not  imposed  from 
without,  and  that  they  preserve,  though  not  unchanged, 
the  religious  conceptions  and  practices  of  a  remote  ancestry. 
With  this  key  to  its  real  inwardness,  we  can  understand 
and  appreciate  the  stability  of  the  caste  system  through 
so  many  centuries,  and  the  pride  that  each  member  of  a 
caste  takes  to  scrupulously  maintain  its  boundaries  intact, 
this  being  his  primary  duty  as  a  religious,  moral,  reputable 
person.  If  a  man  respect  not  his  caste  he  is  worthy  oidy 
of  contempt  and  detestation.  That  he  should  be  bom 
in  one  caste  instead  of  another,  in  one  station  of  life 
instead  of  another,  is  due  to  his  Karma  (actions  in  previous 
existences),  and  therefore  inevitable,^  and  it  is  this  belief 
which  enables  him  cheerfully  to  do  his  duty  "  in  that  state 
of  life  imto  which  it  shall  please  God  to  call  him";  the 
Brahman  hierarchy  being  thus  more  successful  than  the 
Christian  priesthood  in  attaining  an  end  which  both  liave 
kept  in  view,  and  still  desire  to  see  accomplished. 

Note. — A  word  about  Muslim  castes  may  be  added. 
The  Muhammadans,  as  such,  form  a  class  apart,  and 
as  conquerors  in  India  were  strongly  differentiated  from 
the  "  infidels " ;  but  the  idea  of  caste  distinctions  amongst 
Mussulmans  themselves  is  alien  to  the  spirit  of  Islam,  yet, 
under  certain  circumstances,  castes  may  and  do  arise  amongst 
Muhammadans.  The  origination  of  a  Muslim  caste  out  of 
a  heretical  sect  is  evidenced  by  the  case  of  the  Nakhawilahs 
of  Medina,  regarding  whom  Sir  E.  Burton  writes : 

"They  are  numerous  and  warlike,  yet  they  are 
despised  by  the  townspeople,  because  they  openly 
profess  heresy,  and  are  moreover  of  humble  degree. 
They  have  their  own  priests  and  instructors,  although 
subject  to  the  orthodox  Kazi;  marry  in  their  own 
sect,  are  confined  to  low  ofiices,  such  as  slaughtering 

'  "Fate,"  said  tlie  lawgiver  Yajnavalkya,  "is  (the  result  of)  a  man's 
acts  performed  in  a  preyious  body." 

6i 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

animals,  sweeping  and  gardening,  and  are  not  allowed 
to  enter  the  Harim  during  life,  or  to  be  carried  to  it 
after  death.  Their  corpses  are  taken  down  an  outer 
street  called  the  Darb  al  Janazah — Road  of  Biers — to 
their  own  cemetery  near  Al-Bakia." 

Burton  adds  in  a  footnote,  that  this  sect  believe  "in 
a  transmigration  of  the  soul,  which,  gradually  purified,  is 
at  last  '  orbed '  into  a  perfect  star !  They  are  scrupulous 
of  caste,  and  will  not  allow  a  Jew  or  a  Frank  to  touch  a 
piece  of  their  furniture.  .  .  ."^ 

Amongst  Indian  Muhammadans  there  are,  it  appears, 
two  main  social  divisions :  the  Ashraf  or  Sharaf,  meaning 
noble,  and  the  Ajlaf  or  Kamina,  base  or  mean.  "The 
former  section,"  writes  Mr,  Gait,  "is  made  up  of  all 
undoubted  descendants  of  foreigners  and  converts  from 
the  higher  castes  of  the  Hindus."  ^  The  rest  of  the 
community  falls  into  the  second  section.  "  In  some  places 
a  third  class,  called  Arzal  or  'lowest  of  all,'  is  added. 
It  consists  of  the  very  lowest  castes,  such  as  the  Halalkhor, 
Lalbegi,  Abdal,  and  Bediya,  with  whom  no  other  Muham- 
madan  would  associate,  and  who  are  forbidden  to  enter 
the  mosque  or  to  use  the  public  burial-ground."  ^ 

Except  in  very  exceptional  circumstances,  no  member 
of  the  Ashraf  class  will  give  his  daughter  in  marriage  to 
a  man  of  inferior  grade. 

Indian  converts  to  Muhammadanism  and  their  de- 
scendants forming  the  lower  section  of  the  community 
have  fallen  quite  naturally  into  endogamous  groups, 
governed,  as  regards  social  life,  after  the  manner  of  the 
regular  Hindu  castes. 

^  Pilgrmiaga  to  Al-Madiiiah  and  Mecca,   vol.    ii.    p.    2.     From   their 
belief  in  metempsychosis,  the  Nakhawilahs  were  probably  of  Indian  origin. 
2  The  Census  of  India,  1901.     Report,  pp.  543,  544. 


62 


CASTE  IN  INDIA— continued 

Section  IV. — Caste  outside  the  Hindu  system — A  digressioual  study. 

WjlL  TT  0  little  amused  wonder  and  supercilious 
^  -  —  ■  criticism  on  the  part  of  Europeans  has 
been  aroused  by  the  caste  system  of  India, 
which  has  generally  been  regarded  as  an 
absurd,  unhealthy,  social  phenomenon,  with- 
out parallel  elsewhere. 
The  system,  it  must  be  admitted,  has  very  marked 
peculiarities  of  its  own,  but  caste  prejudices,  and  institutions 
based  on  such  prejudices,  are  not  wholly  absent  from  social 
life  outside  India,  even  in  highly  civilised  states  of  the 
Western  World.  And  a  little  consideration  of  such  indi- 
cations of  caste  feeling  will  help  us  to  account  in  some 
measure  for  the  more  salient  characteristics  of  the  Indian 
system,  or  at  any  rate  serve  to  clear  our  minds  of  certain 
unfounded  prejudices  and  offensive  cant. 

I  am  well  aware  that  an  attempt  to  establish  any 
resemblance  between  the  class  distinctions  which  exist 
in  Europe  and  the  hereditary  caste  coi'porations  of  Hinduism, 
though  it  might  be  viewed  with  favour  by  educated  Indians, 
would  be  scouted  by  the  ordinary  Englishman,  who  prides 
himself  upon  the  homogeneity  of  his  people,  his  free 
institutions,  and  his  democratic  ideals;  and  it  must  be 
admitted  that  heredity  does  not,  at  present,  except  in  rare 
cases,  form  an  indispensable  feature  of  the  classes  into 
which  European  society  is  divided;  but  it  is  neverthe- 
less undeniable  that,  even  in  Europe,  certain  genuine 
hereditary  caste  distinctions  have  at  various  times  been 
maintained  by  law,  and  are  to  be  found  there  even  at  the 
present  day. 

One  much  derided  peculiarity  of  the  Hindu  caste  system 

63 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

is  the  hereditary  character  of  trades  and  occupations,  and 
in  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  recall  to  mind  that 
at  certain  epochs  the  law  in  Europe  has  compelled  men 
to  keep,  generation  after  generation,  to  the  calling  of  their 
fathers  without  the  option  of  change. 

An  instance  in  point  is  the  organisation  of  the  State 
under  the  laws  laid  down  by  the  Emperor  Diocletian  and 
his  successors. 

"  This  organisation  established  in  the  Roman  world 
a  personal  and  hereditary  fixity  of  professions  and 
situations,  which  was  not  very  far  removed  from  the 
caste  system  of  the  East.  .  .  .  Members  of  the  adminis- 
trative service  were,  in  general,  absolutely  bound  to 
their  employments ;  they  could  not  choose  their  wives  or 
marry  their  daughters  outside  of  the  collegia  to  which 
they  respectively  belonged,  and  they  transmitted  their 
obligations  to  their  children.  ...  In  municipalities  the 
curiales,  or  members  of  the  local  senates,  were  bound, 
with  special  strictness,  to  their  places  and  their  functions, 
which  often  involved  large  personal  expenditure.  .  .  . 
Their  families,  too,  were  bound  to  remain  ;  they  were 
attached  by  the  law  to  the  collegia  or  other  bodies 
to  which  they  belonged.  The  soldier,  procured  for 
the  army  by  conscription,  served  as  long  as  his  age 
fitted  him  for  his  duties,  and  his  sons  were  bound  to 
similar  service. 

"  In  a  constitution  of  Constantino  (a.d.  332)  the 
colonus  is  recognised  as  permanently  attached  to 
the  land.  If  he  abandoned  his  holding,  he  was 
brought  back  and  punished ;  and  anyone  who  received 
him  had  not  only  to  restore  him  but  to  pay  a  penalty. 
He  could  not  marry  out  of  the  domain ;  if  he  took 
for  wife  a  colona  of  another  proprietor,  she  was  restored 
to  her  original  locality,  and  the  offspring  of  the  union 
were  divided  between  the  estates.  The  children  of 
a  colonus  were  fixed  in  the  same  status,  and  could  not 
quit  the  property  to  which  they  belonged."  ^ 

To  the  foregoing  may  be  added  that  in  England  an 
ancient  enactment  required  all  men  who  at  any  time  took 
up  the  calling  of  coal-mining  or  drysalting,  to  keep  to  that 

^  J.  K.  Ingram,  LL.D.,  History  of  Slavery  and  Serfdom,  pp.  74-78. 

64 


CASTE  IN   INDIA 

occupation  for  life,  and  enjoined  that  their  children  should 
also  follow  the  same  employment.  This  law  was  only 
repealed  by  statutes  passed  in  the  15th  and  39th  years  of 
the  reign  of  George  III.;  that  is  in  the  lifetime  of  the 
fathers  of  many  men  who  are  with  us  to-day, 

A  more  striking  European  example  of  a  compulsory 
hereditary  calling,  common  enough  in  the  Middle  Ages  and 
down  to  the  last  century  in  Eussia,  is  that  of  the  serfs 
bound  to  the  soil  from  generation  to  generation.  Then 
again  there  existed  through  long  periods  of  European 
history,  the  institution  of  hereditary  slavery,  with  all  its 
abominations. 

In  the  social  fabric  of  all  countries  are  to  be  found 
certain  classes  which  owing  to  various  circumstances, 
political  or  other,  are  possessed  of  hereditary  privileges, 
titles,  and  offices  giving  them  precedence  over  the  rest. 
These  constitute  the  aristocracy,  and  at  the  bottom  of  the 
social  scale  in  Europe,  as  elsewhere,  are  the  workers.  In 
India,  for  reasons  explained  later,  it  is  the  sacerdotal  caste 
which  is  at  present,  and  which  has  long  been  the  hereditary 
Hindu  aristocracy. 

Below  the  aristocracy  and  above  the  proletariat  we 
everywhere  find  a  medley  of  classes,  yet  tolerably  well 
defined;  each  with  its  pretensions  stoutly  asserted  and 
jealously  guarded.  Such,  for  example,  are  the  divisions 
based  upon  landed  proprietorship ;  educational  distinctions, 
as  the  learned  professions  lay  and  clerical;  and  those 
which  are  connected  with  mercantile  affairs  and  trade 
pursuits. 

Between  the  different  grades  of  the  social  scale  there 
exists  a  matrimonial  taboo,  and  a  woman  of  any  recognised 
class  who  "marries  beneath  her,"  marries  a  man  lower 
down  in  the  social  scale,  is  rejected  of  the  class  in  which 
she  was  bom,  and  is  regarded  by  her  former  friends  with 
aversion  and  contempt  far  greater  than  they  feel  for  any 
member  of  the  class  to  which  she  has  descended. 

Men  who  marry  women  of  inferior  social  grade  suffer  in 

a  similar  way ;  but  by  no  means  to  the  same  degree  as 

women  who  marry  below  the  rank  in  which   they  were 

\     born.     Yet    it    may    be    noted    that    amongst    the    very 

\  E  65         ■ 

i 
\ 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

,    exclusive  German  ruling  classes  and  higher  aristocracy  a 

I    mesalliance  on  the  part  of  a  prince  or  noble  is  visited  with 

/     the  gravest  penalties,  including  social  ostracism  and  de- 

I     privation  of  rights.     Herein  we  have  caste  prejudice  strongly 

i     displayed. 

/  Of    the    feelings   which   find  expression    in   the  well- 

/      understood  social  laws  just  glanced  at,  pride  of  blood  is  the 
i       most  important,  usually  implying  a  claim  to  dominance  at 
I       some  time  or  other ;  such  claims  being  often  of  a  somewhat 
!        shadowy  nature,  as  where  an  English  family  pride  them- 
selves upon  the  fact  that  a  direct  ancestor  of  theirs  came 
over  with  William  the  Norman,  the  implication  being  that 
their  ancestor  was  one  of  the  conquerors  of  alien  race  from 
across  the  sea  who  subdued  the  native  Anglo-Saxons  in  the 
eleventh  century,  and  ruled  over  them. 

Amongst  men  of  kindred  races  professing  the  same  faith 
and  practically  of  the  same  colour,  caste  distinctions  though 
they  may  be  set  up  after  conquest  by  the  dominant 
nationality  cannot,  except  in  the  case  of  serfs  or  slaves,  be 
long  maintained,  because  the  offspring  of  women  of  the 
subject  race  by  men  of  the  conquering  tribes  or  nations  are 
able,  without  attracting  special  attention,  to  assume  the 
status  and  enjoy  the  privileges  of  their  fathers. 

With  the  decline  of  the  warlike  spirit,  the  exaltation  of 

i        commercialism,  and  the  pronounced  worship  of  wealth,  a 

\       new  source  of  pride  has  been  introduced  arising  out  of  the 

\      power  of  exploiting  others  which  the  possession  of  money 

1      confers,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  this  same  com- 

I      mercialism  has  also  tended  to  the  discounting  of  heredi- 

i     tary  class  distinctions.      Of  the  arrogance  which  is  based 

\     upon   the   possession   of    a   long  purse   no   illustration   is 

needed. 

Besides  the  social  barriers  arising  out  of  birth,  opulence, 
knowledge,  or  occupation,  there  are  others  due  to  religious 
differences  which  are  serious,  often  insuperable,  obstacles  to 
intermarriage,  and  tend  to  disseverance.  Here  the  priest- 
hood plays  an  important  role.  For  the  jealous  maintenance 
of  their  own  jurisdiction  and  power,  but  ostensibly  for  the 
protection  of  their  flocks  from  deadly  spiritual  contamination 
by  misbelievers,  the  priests  of  each  religion  or  sect  strenu- 

66 


CASTE   IN   INDIA 

ously  interdict,  and  visit  with  social  penalties,  all  marriages 
between  members  of  their  own  Church  or  denomination  and 
outsiders,  even  of  the  same  religion.  Where  powerful 
enough  to  impose  their  wiU  on  the  laws  of  the  country,  inter- 
marriages between  members  of  divergent  sects  are  made  illegal. 
Hence,  as  is  weU  known,  unions  between  Roman  Catholics, 
the  followers  of  the  orthodox  Greek  Church,  and  Protestants, 
generally  are  discouraged,  or  even  actively  opposed  by  the 
priests,  and  are,  on  that  account,  not  very  frequent.  Even . 
amongst  Protestant  sects  the  tendency  to  endogamy  is 
apparent ;  for  example,  we  have  the  Quakers,  who  since  the 
formation  of  the  sect  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago,  have  intermarried  mostly  within  the  sect. 

However,  as  already  noted,  it  is  not  in  communities 
made  up  of  races  of  the  same  colour  that  prejudices  giving 
rise  to  social  or  caste  distinctions  are  most  in  evidence.  It 
is  when  the  contrast  in  colour  between  rulers  and  ruled  is 
accentuated  that  such  prejudices  are  rampant.  Good  con- 
temporary examples  are  to  hand  in  the  relations  subsisting 
between  wliite  men  and  negroes  in  the  Southern  States  of 
the  American  Union ;  between  European  intruders  and  the 
black  indigenous  peoples  of  South  Africa,  and  between  the 
British  in  India  and  their  brown  or  black  subjects.  Each 
of  these  examples  differs  materially  from  the  others  in 
many  important  respects,  but  aU  three  have  certain  common 
features  and  may  be  studied  with  advantage. 

If  we  consider  the  condition  of  society  in  the  United 
States  of  America,  a  racial  problem  of  surpassing  interest 
presents  itseK  to  us.  We  are  confronted  with  the  results  of 
the  dominance  of  race  over  race  in  a  definite  and  most 
instructive  form.  There  four  distinct  varieties  of  human 
kind,  differentiated  from  each  other  by  anatomical  peculi- 
arities, by  colour,  and  by  civilisation,  dwell  together — a 
dominant  white  population  of  mixed  European  races; 
remnants  of  the  so-called  Eed-Indian  race ;  certain  colonies 
of  Chinese  and  Japanese;  and  a  compact  mass  of  about 
twelve  millions  of  the  black  descendants  of  West  Airicans 
imported  into  the  country  as  slaves,  not  conquered  but 
kidnapped  or  else  bought  with  gold,  and  only  emancipated 
from  bondage  as  recently  as  1863. 

67 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

Here  the  dominant  whites  disallow  all  matrimonial 
relations  between  their  women  and  men  of  the  other  races, 
more  especially  the  black.  To  such  a  degree  is  this  senti- 
ment encouraged  that  in  the  Southern  States  of  the  Union, 
an  outrage  by  a  black  man  on  a  white  woman  is  generally 
avenged  by  the  death  of  the  negro  at  the  hands  of  infuriated 
whites,  who  very  rarely  suffer  any  punishment  whatever  for 
such  lawless  acts. 

Whites  and  blacks,  even  though  they  happen  to  belong 
to  the  same  Christian  sect  or  denomination,  do  not  worship 
together,  they  do  not  attend  the  same  schools/  do  not  dine 
together,  or  even  sit  at  the  same  tables,  do  not  travel  in  the 
same  cars,  and  are  buried  in  distinct  cemeteries.  The  white 
man  does  not  object  to  his  food  being  cooked  or  served  up 
for  him  by  the  black  man  ;  nor  is  he  polluted  by  the  black 
man's  touch ;  but,  these  points  being  waived,  the  resemblance 
between  the  relations  of  white  men  and  negroes  in  the 
Southern  States  of  the  Union  is  strikingly  similar  to 
that  of  the  highest  and  lowest  castes  amongst  Hindus  in 
India. 

Repression  of  the  blacks  in  the  United  States  and  else- 
where is  usually  explained  and  justified  by  attributing  it  to 
an  inherent  and  unalterable  physical  repulsion,  i.e.,  instinctive 
and  unconquerable  race  antipathy.  That  striking  differences 
between  races,  as  respects  physiognomy,  colour,  tempera- 
ment, intellectual  attainments,  and  customs  must  necessarily 
lead  to  social  incompatibility  is  obvious ;  but  what  has  been 
persistently  preached  regarding  deep-seated,  instinctive,  and 
uncontrollable  race  antipathy  would  be  more  convincing  if 
the  white  man  shrank  with  repugnance  from  the  black  or 
red  woman.     But   this   is   not   so !    White   men   had   for 


1  In  1904  an  Act  was  passed  in  the  State  of  Kentucky,  imposing  a  fine  of 
fifty  dollars  a  day  on  any  white  person  attending  a  negro  school,  or  any 
negro  attending  a  school  for  white  persons. 

Following  the  example  of  their  rulers,  the  Redskins  find  their  racial 
susceptibilities  outraged  by  negi'o  children  being  allowed  to  attend  schools 
where  their  children  are  taught,  and  two  years  ago  made  representations  to 
the  United  States  Government  on  the  subject. 

In  California  Japanese  children  are,  at  the  present  time,  excluded  from 
the  public  schools  ;  but  the  Japs,  victorious  over  the  Russians,  are  not  likely 
to  put  np  for  long  with  such  an  indignity. 

68 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

centuries  formed  irregular  unions  with  their  black  female 
slaves,  the  result  being  an  addition  to  the  slave  population 
of  persons  of  mixed  descent. 

When  in  the  fulness  of  time  the  slave  population  was 
at  length  endowed  with  political  freedom,  at  a  date  within 
the  memory  of  many  now  living,  the  members  of  this  mixed 
race  preferred  to  mate  with  their  own  kind  rather  than 
with  the  pure  blacks,  and,  more  than  that,  the  mixed  race 
exhibited  a  marked  tendency  to  subdivide  into  more  or  less 
exclusive  gi'oups,  those  least  related  by  consanguinity  to 
the  despised  black  stock  claiming  racial  and  social  superi- 
ority. 

/      That  white  men  have  nowhere  shuddered  at  the  embraces 
/  of  black  women  is  an  indisputable  fact ;  but  on  the  other 
I  hand,  that  white  women  of  a  dominant  nationality,  being 
I   fully   aware   of    the    social  degradation    involved   in   any 
union,  whether  regular  or  irregular,  with  men  of  a  sub- 
ject and  more   particularly  a  black   subject  race,   should 
shrink  from   them   is   at  least    understandable,   but   such 
aversion  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  instinctive  race 
antipathy. 

Where  distinct  races,  differentiated  by  colour,  come  into 
contact  as  conquerors  and  subjects,  and  more  especially 
when  the  rulers,  almost  invariably  invaders  and  aggressors, 
are,  as  is  commonly  the  case,  in  the  minority,  the  dread  of 
losing  their  right  to  exploit  the  subject  peoples  by  amalga- 
mating with  them  ever  so  little  is  so  keen,  that  caste 
feehngs  are  fanatically  fostered  even  to  the  extremes  seen 
to-day  in  certain  parts  of  South  Africa — Transvaal  and 
Natal,  for  example — where  the  natives  are  denied  all  political 
rights  in  their  own  land,  are  compelled  in  urban  centres  to 
live  in  appointed  sites  quite  apart  from  their  over-lords, 
subject  to  many  gaUing  restrictions,^  where  even  temporary 
illicit  connections  between  immoral  white  women  and  black, 
brown  or  yellow  men,  are  punishable  under  the  law,  and 
where  men  of  non-European  race  are  subjected  to  the 
humiliating  indignity  of  being  obliged  to  walk  in  the  road- 
way, while  the  footways  are  reserved  for  whites  alone.    This 

1  For  example,  to  keep  within  doors  after  a  certain  fixed  honr  not  long 
after  sunset,  and  to  carry  passes  with  them  to  prove  their  identity,  etc. 

69 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

last  is  an  almost  identical  reproduction  of  the  treatment 
which  used  to  be  experienced  by  the  pariahs  in  Southern 
India  under  Hindu  rule,  and  which  scandalised  good  Euro- 
peans so  much  in  the  past.  That  an  Aryan  Brahman  from 
Central  Asia  should  despise  an  aboriginal  Pariah  seemed  a 
ridiculous  and  outrageous  display  of  caste  prejudice;  but 
when  it  comes  to  the  case  of  Europeans  and  Kaffirs,  the 
matter  seems  to  present  a  different  aspect. 

The  position  of  the  British  Indian  in  the  Transvaal  and 
other  parts  of  South  Africa  is  peculiarly  instructive.  He 
has  no  political  rights,  and  possesses  neither  social  nor 
commercial  equality.  His  racial  inferiority  is  the  osten- 
sible cause  of  the  position  assigned  to  him ;  but  it  is 
acknowledged,  even  officially,  that  the  British  Indian  owes 
his  unfair  disabilities  to  his  marked  success  as  a  tradesman 
to  the  pecuniary  detriment  of  his  white  competitors. 

How  mere  industrial  competition  engenders  race-hatred 
is  exemplified  by  a  quite  recent  and  novel  incident,  the 
immigration  of  some  2500  Sikhs  into  British  Columbia,  re- 
garding which  Col.  Talk  "Warren  writes  in  November  1906, 
that  although  the  conduct  of  these  immigrants  has  been 
entirely  exemplary,  "  a  campaign  of  calumny  and  vitupera- 
tion has  been  and  continues  to  be  engineered  against  them, 
to  which  the  politicians  who  seek  to  maintain  the  labour 
vote  are  forced  to  submit."  ^ 

In  India  the  British  form  a  distinct  caste,  the  most 
exclusive  and  haughty  varna  in  the  land.  Though,  theo- 
retically. Englishmen  laugh  at  and  condemn  caste,  they,  like 
others,  are  sticklers  for  it  whenever  their  own  interests  are 
concerned,  and,  whatever  their  official  utterances  may  be, 
Anglo-Indians  are  well  pleased  that  the  caste-ridden  Hindus 
are  what  they  are.  To  members  of  the  ruling  race  in  private 
life,  no  one  is  more  distasteful  than  the  denationalised 
Hindu  gentleman,  whatever  his  rank,  who,  putting  aside 
his  caste  prejudices,  and  willing  to  conform  to  European 
social  laws  and  etiquette,  would  seek  to  establish  inti- 
mate friendly  relations  with  the  disinterested  exiles,  who 
devote  their  lives  to  the  thankless  task  of  governing  and 
uplifting  their  Indian  fellow-subjects. 

'  Pioneer  Mail  (Allahabad),  11th  January  1907. 
70 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

I  have  made  it  clear,  I  hope,  that  the  feeling  of  race 
antagonism,  which  is  at  the  root  of  caste  distinctions,  lies 
primarily  in  a  sense  of  the  danger  to  life,  authority,  privi- 
leges or  trade  profits  Ukely  to  ensue  from  any  fusion  or 
friendly  intercourse  between  the  rulers  and  the  ruled,  as 
such  blending  or  association  would  inevitably  undermine 
the  assumed  natural  superiority  of  the  ruling  race  (usually 
a  minority),  damage  their  prestige,  curtail  their  exclusive 
privileges  or  commercial  gains,  and  be  subversive  of  the 
existing  dominancy,  whether  political  or  economic. 

It  may  be  urged  that  in  the  United  States  of  America 
the  blacks  are  numerically  inferior  to  the  whites,  and  are 
now  free  citizens  of  the  Great  BepuUic,  and  that  the  repulsion 
felt  towards  them  by  the  whites  is  therefore  not  that  of 
rulers  towards  a  more  or  less  dangerous  subject  race.  With- 
out admitting — for  no  one  could  do  so — that  the  negro  in 
the  United  States  of  America  is  a  free  man,  with  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  a  citizen,  since  he  is  kept  from  the  polls 
by  actual  violence  or  fraud,  I  would  point  out  that  the 
emancipated  slave  is,  by  reason  of  his  emancipation,  thrown, 
as  a  wage-earner,  into  unavoidable  competition  with  free 
white  labom-  of  all  kinds,  and  this  renders  him  more 
personally  odious  to  the  white  man  than  ever  he  was 
before.  Besides,  the  white  employer  has  now  lost  the  power 
of  exploiting  the  negro  as  he  formerly  did,  and  the  white 
business  man  can  no  longer  ignore  him  as  a  competitor,  how- 
ever heavily  handicapped,  in  the  general  struggle  for  wealth, 
which  means  power.  Moreover,  the  very  fact  that  the  negroes 
in  the  States  were,  not  so  long  ago,  a  servile  race,  only 
widens  the  gulf  between  whites  and  blacks,  for,  laws  or  no 
laws,  the  taint  of  their  long  slavery  still  clings  to  the  negro 
race,  and  will  continue  to  do  so.  However,  it  is  undoubtedly 
the  industrial  competition  of  the/re«  negro  and  the  free  white 
which  is  at  present  the  most  important  factor  in  encour- 
aging and  embittering  the  race-hatred  which  disfigures  the 
relations  of  the  whites  and  the  negroes  in  the  United  States.^ 

'  That  under  certain  reasonable  economic  and  administrative  conditiona 
white  men  and  negroes  can  live  together  in  harmony  and  to  their  mutual 
advantage,  is  evident  from  the  present  state  of  Jamaica,  as  has  been  shown 
by  Mr.  Sydney  Olivier  in  hia  little  book  White  Capital  and  Coloured  Labour. 

71 


BRAHMANS,  THElSTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

From  a  general  survey  of  the  matter  it  may  be  asserted 
that,  carried  away  by  conceit,  a  dominant  race  naturally 
arrogates  to  itself  a  fundamental,  inherent,  and  permanent 
superiority,  and  "Western  science  explains  such  claims  by 
setting  up  anthropological  standards  based  on  morphological, 
and  especially  craniological  peculiarities  ;  and  offers  various 
plausible  theories  of  race  evolution,  leading  to  the  foregone 
conclusion  that  any  mixture  of  the  superior  with  inferior 
races  can  result  in  nothing  but  degeneration,  and  should 
therefore  be  avoided  by  the  superior  stock  at  all  costs,  even 
the  persecution  and,  if  necessary,  extermination  of  the  in- 
ferior. Much  has  been  written  on  these  subjects,  but  it  is 
perhaps  worth  recalling  to  mind  that,  practically,  as  the 
world's  history  shows,  the  superior  of  two  races  at  any 
period  is  the  one  that,  having  subdued  the  other,  finds  itself 
in  a  position  which  enables  its  members  to  swagger  as  masters 
and  better  men  in  comparison  with  the  vanquished,  and,  for 
the  time  being,  the  claim  is  undoubtedly  tenable. 

If  what  has  been  already  stated  be  correct,  the  com- 
prehension of  the  problem  of  the  genesis  and  evolution  of 
race  prejudice  does  not  present  insurmountable  difficulties. 

Assuming  as  a  permanent  fact  that  the  climatic  con- 
ditions— temperature,  sunshine,  moisture,  soil,  and  elevation 
above  sea-level — of  various  portions  of  the  earth's  surface 
will  always  present  marked  differences,  it  will,  no  doubt,  be 
granted  that  any  tribe,  or  body  of  men  established  for  a  long 
period  of  time  on  any  particular  locality  would  develop,  in 
response  to  its  environment,  such  special  morphological  and 
psychological  characteristics  as  would  differentiate  it  from 
the  races  or  types  of  men  evolved  elsewhere  under  dis- 
similar climatic  conditions.  Now,  if  rivalry  and  competition, 
whether  political  or  commercial,  arise  between  such  distinct 
peoples  of  alien  civilisations,  unbearable  irritation  and  fierce 
antagonisms  are  generated,  feelings  which  find  expression 
in  acts  of  hostility,  conquest,  and  oppression  on  the  part  of 
the  stronger ;  such  acts  being  justified  before  the  world  by 
exaggerated  vilification  of  the  down-trodden  people,  who, 
filled  with  resentment,  indulge  in  what  reprisals  they 
can  or  dare  attempt.  The  vilification  just  referred  to 
reiterated,  generation  after  generation,  comes  to  be  accepted 

72 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

as  embodying  irrefragable  verities,  and  breeds  a  settled 
contempt  and  aversion  for  the  weaker,  vanquished  people 
in  the  minds  of  men  and  women  of  the  dominant  race; 
the  prejudice  thus  established  and  perpetuated  being  easily 
mistaken  for  a  fundamental  xTistinct  due  to  subtle  causes 
traceable  to  eternal  and  unalterable  laws  of  nature. 

The  foregoing  studies  bearing  on  caste  in  the  social 
life  of  communities  outside  India  and  outside  Hinduism, 
although  deliberately  kept  within  very  narrow  limits,  reveal 
the  existence  of  certain  notable  lines  of  social  cleavage, 
traceable  to  various  causes,  the  most  important  being: 
Racial  pride  on  the  part  of  members  of  tribes  or  nation- 
alities which  are,  or  have  at  some  time  previous  been 
predominant,  such  pride  being  greatly  accentuated  by 
differences  of  colour  when  they  exist;  pride  in  hereditary 
privileges,  offices,  and  titles  indicative  of  ancestral  superi- 
ority ;  and  greed  evidenced  by  a  strong  desire  on  the  part 
of  a  ruling  class  to  exploit  the  conquered  for  their  own 
advantage. 

Among  minor  causes  of  social  cleavage  in  communities 
may  be  instanced :  Incompatibility,  and  often  animosity 
arising  out  of  religious  differences  ;  educational  inequalities  as 
affecting  whole  classes ;  for  example,  the  priestly  and  learned 
professions  as  compared  with  the  working  classes ;  and,  lastly, 
the  nature  of  the  occupation  followed  for  a  livelihood. 

Out  of  the  sentiments,  motives,  and  circumstances  just 
detailed,  arise  in  all  societies  many  well-defined  religious 
groups,  and  many  clearly  marked  social  ranks  with  certain 
arbitrary,  perhaps  unreasonable  conventions  of  their  own, 
the  disregard  of  which  is  visited  with  penalties  or  dis- 
abilities more  or  less  pronounced.  The  conventions  I 
refer  to  have  their  raison  d'Hre  in  the  selfish  and  most 
natural  desire  of  each  group  or  rank  to  maintain,  as  far 
as  may  be  possible,  the  social  barriers  between  its  own 
and  other  loicer  sections  of  the  commimity,  and  con- 
sequently to  discourage  intimate  or  even  friendly  inter- 
course, and  more  particularly  marriage,  between  members 
of  distinct  groups.  That  such  conventions  or  caste  pre- 
judices are  considered  indispensable  for  the  stability  of 
communities,  may  account  for  their  universality. 

71' 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

India  could  not,  of  course,  be  exempt  from  the  opera- 
tion of  so  general  a  law;  but  India  exhibits  the  social 
phenomena  of  caste  in  a  peculiar  form.  Its  caste  divisions 
are  multitudinous  and  well  defined.  All  of  them,  and  not 
only  a  few  as  elsewhere,  are  hereditary,  and  their  mainten- 
ance has  the  semblance  of  a  religious  duty,  inasmuch  as 
it  is  strongly  supported  in  the  case  of  each  group  by  the 
Brahmans,  who  guide  the  spiritual  life  of  each  separate 
community.  In  this  last  stated  fact  lies  the  salient 
distinguishing  feature  of  the  Hindu  system.  It  is  a  quasi- 
reliyious  system;  hence  independent  of  secular  laws,  and 
instead  of  being  a  cause  for  heart-burning  and  jealousy, 
is  more  often  than  not  a  source  of  pride  even  amongst 
members  of  the  humbler  castes.  So  deeply  is  caste  feeling 
rooted  amongst  the  Indian  people  that  not  only  do  Hindus 
respect  the  caste  system,  but,  as  explained  already,  Hindus 
converted  to  Islam  also,  to  some  extent,  surrender  them- 
selves to  its  potent  hereditary  influence,  and  often,  too, 
Christianised  Indians  cannot  quite  emancipate  themselves 
from  its  thraldom.^ 

^  The  native  Christian  headmaster  of  a  mission  school  was  asked  iu  a 
court  of  justice  what  his  religion  was. 

He  replied  :  "  Brahman- Christian." 

The  European  judge,  not  recognising  such  a  sect,  asked  for  more 
information. 

The  headmaster  then  reiterated  his  former  statement  that  lie  was  a 
"Brahman-Christian,"  adding  with  some  warmth:  "I  cannot  call  my- 
self simply  a  Christian  when  that  Choorah  (sweeper)  there  is  also  a 
Christian.  I  am  a  Brahman-Christian,  sir,"  and  he  said  this  by  way  of 
asserting  his  claim  to  racial  superiority,  not  desiring  that  it  should  be 
forgotten  because  he  had  adopted  a  new  creed. 


74 


CASTE  IN  INDIA— <;ontinued 

Section  V. — An  attempt  to  throw  some  light  upon  the  genesis  and 
evolution  of  the  Hindu  caste  system. 

OW  the  Hindu  caste  syetem  really  originated 
we  do  not  actually  know,  and  never  shall 
know.  But  by  the  laborious  researches  of 
many  capable  inquirers  and  the  intelligent 
investigations  of  many  competent  English 
officials,  aided  by  native  staffs,  a  great  store 
of  facts  relating  to  the  present  state  and  past  history  of 
the  Hindu  caste  system  has  been  gradually  accumulated, 
and  several  attempts  have  been  made  to  derive  from  the  data 
thus  made  available  some  more  or  less  satisfactory  explana- 
tion of  the  origin  and  development  of  the  system.  We 
have  proof  that  it  is  of  old  standing,  that  it  has  not  been 
exempt  from  mutation,  and  that  it  has  been  of  gradual  de- 
velopment. AVe  are,  moreover,  able  to  trace  the  formation 
of  certain  new  castes  in  India  within  quite  recent  times. 
The  long  past  history  of  the  world  is  not  to  be  read  like 
an  open  book;  but,  as  in  the  science  of  geology,  so  in 
history,  a  close  study  of  recent  and  contemporary  happen- 
ings may  help  us  to  gain  an  insight  into  operations  and 
events  of  which  no  direct  or  reliable  records  are  available. 

The  preliminary  studies,  to  which  the  previous  section 
was  devoted,  show  there  are  certain  social  and  political 
conditions  which,  wherever  they  exist,  have,  quite  irre- 
spective of  Hinduism,  tended  towards  the  genesis  of 
hereditary  caste  distinctions.  With  this  knowledge  to 
guide  us,  and  by  the  light  of  such  fragmentary  traditional 
and  historical  data  as  are  available,  we  may  not  unreason- 
ably  hope   to   arrive   at    more    or   less   satisfactory   ideas 

75 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

regarding  the  origin  and  growth  of  the  exceedingly  complex 
caste  system  as  it  exists  to-day  in  India. 

As  stated  previously,  the  Sanskrit  word  for  caste  is 
varna,  meaning  colour,  and  this  gives  us  at  least  one  im- 
portant clue  to  the  solution  of  the  problem,  for  it  shows 
clearly  that  the  Hindu  caste  system  arose  primarily  out  of 
the  contact  of  races  strongly  differentiated  by  colour.  What 
such  contact  leads  to,  even  amongst  nations  contemporary 
with  ourselves,  we  have  already  seen.  But  the  conditions 
and  circumstances  of  the  old-world  racial  conflict,  out  of 
which  emerged  by  gradual  development  the  Hindu  caste 
system,  were  widely  different  from  those  which  have  obtained 
in  the  United  States  of  America,  or  in  South  Africa,  or 
in  India  under  British  rule. 

At  a  remote  period,  perhaps  1500  B.C.,  certain  Aryan  ^ 
tribes  coming  from  Central  Asia  commenced  invading  the 
north-western  corner  of  the  already  partially  inhabited 
territories  now  known  as  India,  bringing  with  them  a 
religion  which  may  be  characterised  as  a  vague  physiolatry, 
represented  more  or  less,  at  a  later  stage,  by  four  collec- 
tions of  hymns  known  as  Vedas.^  Their  form  of  govern- 
ment seems  to   have   been   constructed  on  clan  lines.    It 

'  From  certain  resemblances  and  affinities  which  the  study  of  languages 
has  revealed,  philologists  infer  that  the  most  important  European  races  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  inhabitants  of  Persia,  Armenia,  Afghanistan,  and 
Northern  India  on  the  other  hand,  had  a  common  origin,  and  the  name 
Aryan  has  been  used  to  designate  this  group  of  Indo-European  nations. 
As  to  Avhere  the  original  home  or  cradle  of  the  primitive  Aryans  lay,  the 
philologists  have  not  been  able  to  agree.  Some  find  it  is  Central  Asia, 
others  in  Europe. 

-  The  Vedas  are  the  Rig,  the  Sama,  the  Yajur,  and  the  Atarva.  The 
first  of  these  and  the  most  important  is  a  collection  of  some  1028  hymns 
addressed,  for  the  most  ^mrt,  to  personified  powers  of  Nature,  such  as  Agni 
(Fire),  Surya  (The  Sun),  Indra  ( The  Atmosphere),  etc.  The  Sama  and  the 
Yajur  Vedas  are  composed  almost  exclusively  of  the  hymns  of  the  Rig 
Veda  arranged  for  sacrificial  purposes.  The  Atarva  Veda,  of  later  origin 
than  the  others,  is  a  collection  of  hymns  taken  from  the  Rig  V^eda  intended 
to  serve  as  charms  to  prevent  or  to  cure  diseases,  to  drive  away  demons,  t 
frustrate  sorcerers  and  enemies,  to  ensure  victory  in  battle,  to  promote 
virility,  to  obtain  a  husband  or  wife,  to  arouse  the  passionate  love  of  a  man 
or  a  woman,  to  guarantee  safety  at  an  assignation,  to  allay  jealousy,  to 
stimulate  the  growth  of  the  hair,  and  to  secure  a  hundred  other  advan- 
tages both  trivial  and  important ;  often,  of  course,  at  the  expense  of 
others. 

76 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

was  in  fact  a  clan  organisation,  a  federation  of   separate 
tribes,  sub-tribes,  and  clans  under  their  own  chiefs.^ 

And,  if  the  learned  M.  Senart  is  correct,  the  social 
organisation  of  these  Aryan  invaders  was  based  on  principles 
which  underlie  the  later  caste  system  of  the  Hindus.  Un- 
fortunately, however,  there  is  no  direct  evidence  for  this 
conclusion,  which  is  based  upon  certain  resemblances  and 
analogies  in  the  social  customs  relating  to  marriage  and 
food  amongst  the  Greeks  and  Eomaus  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  Hindus  on  the  other. 

The  races  and  tribes  inhabiting  India  when  the  Aryans 
came  into  the  coimtry  had,  of  course,  their  own  peculiar 
cults  and  languages,  and  also  their  polities,  which  last  were 
probably,  in  most  cases,  tribal  and  not  unlike  that  of  the 
Aryans  themselves. 

One  tribe  of  Aryan  invaders  would  naturally  be  followed 
by  another,  and  yet  another,  one  clan  would  drift  after 
another  as  the  attractions  of  the  simny  plains  to  the  south 
of  the  Himalayas  became  known  in  the  home  lands  of  the 
Aryan  race.  Two  distinct  streams  of  Aryan  invaders  or 
immigrants  composed  of  distinct  tribes  and  clans  seem, 
according  to  our  best  authorities,  to  have  penetrated  the 
new  territories;  one  from  the  north-west  into  the  Punjab 
and  the  other  through  Gilgit  and  Chitral  into  the  plains 
watered  by  the  Ganges  and  Jumna,^  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  following  the  line  of  least  resistance,  or  attracted 
by  special  natural  advantages  of  soil  or  climate,  the  separate 
clan  organisations  or  even  the  distinct  clans  squatted  where 
they  could,  and  often  out  of  touch  with  each  other. 

The  proportion  of  women  which  each  immigrant  clan 
could  bring  along  with  it  would  naturally  depend  upon 
many  circumstances;  but  in  any  case  there  would  be  a 
deficiency  of  Aryan  women  in  each  intrusive  group ;  just  as 
there  is  at  the  present  time  a  paucity  of  European  women 
in  colonies  planted  abroad  in  newly  acquired  territories. 

During  the  long  centuries  of  conflict  which  followed 

*  B.  H.  Baden-Powell,  The  Indian  Village  Community,  pp.  192-195. 

'This  latter  stream  of  immigrants  was  suggested  by  Dr.  Hoemle  to 
accoont  for  the  Aryo-Dravidian  type  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  United 
Provinces. 

77 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

these  invasions  and  witnessed  the  successful,  but  very 
gradual,  progress  of  the  Aryans  eastward  and  southward, 
contact  with  alien  forms  of  belief  and  unavoidable  misce- 
genation must  have  tended  to  modify  the  original  religion 
and  the  social  life  of  the  Aryan  invaders.  Desirous  of 
preserving  their  national  faith,  and  above  all  their  racial 
ascendancy  amidst  the  dangers  with  which  they  were 
surrounded  in  their  new  southern  home,  the  invaders  appear 
to  have  recognised  with  instinctive  wisdom  the  important 
truth  that  for  the  attainment  of  these  ends  a  first  and  most 
essential  step  would  be  the  establishment  of  a  hereditary 
pi'iesthood  for  the  efficient  performance  of  rites  and  sacrifices, 
and  as  custodians  and  interpreters  of  the  law,  and  of  a 
liereditary  class  of  warriors  always  ready  for  the  fight. 

Professional  pride  and  the  requirements  of  their  re- 
spective callings  caused  these  two  important  classes  to 
become  exclusive  communities  within  the  body  politic.  The 
remainder  of  the  Aryan  invaders  naturally  fell  into  a  third 
noble  class,  mostly  concerned,  as  agriculturists  and  tradesmen, 
to  promote  the  creation  and  accumulation  of  wealth ;  while 
the  conquered  tribes  would,  without  doubt,  supply  the  servile 
element  in  the  community,  and  so  constitute  a  fourth  class 
of  decidedly  inferior  status,  debarred  from  meddling  with 
matters  religious,  and  denied  the  privilege  of  carrying 
arms. 

When  established  as  conquerors,  the  Aryans  would,  of 
course,  comport  themselves  like  other  successful  races  in 
their  dealings  with  subject  peoples,  and  endeavour  to  secure 
for  themselves  the  maximum  amount  of  contributions 
and  service  from  the  conquered.  Their  own  polity  would 
suggest  that  the  sutyect  peoples  should,  for  revenue  and 
other  governmental  purposes,  be  considered  and  held  respon- 
sible by  tribes,  clans,  and  even  occupations,  and  this  we 
have  reason  to  believe  was  the  plan  actually  adopted  by 
the  Aryans  in  their  dealings  with  the  Indian  aborigines.^ 

As  a  consequence  of  their  predominance,  and  by  way  of 
justification  of  their  high-handed  dealings  with  the  subdued 
tribes,  the  ruling  race  would  naturally  vilify  the  latter,  and 

^  B,  H.  Baden-Powell,  CLE.,  T?ie  Indian  Village  Community,  chap.  v. 
sec.  ii. 

78 


CASTE  IN   INDIA 

in  the  old  Hindu  literature  the  black  autochthones  are 
represented  as  disgusting  monsters  and  vile  demons. 

The  various  detachments  of  Aryans  who,  from  time  to 
time,  under  the  pressure  of  circumstances  moved  forward 
amongst  the  aborigines  would  become  smaller  and  smaller 
as  they  divided  off  to  find  suitable  locations,  while  the 
proportion  of  Aryan  women  amongst  these  dwindHng  bands 
would  also  be  reduced,  so  that  the  immigrants  would,  to  a 
large  extent,  be  forced  to  take  wives  from  the  people 
amongst  whom  they  intruded  themselves.  But,  as  Mr. 
Eisley  has  pointed  out,  miscegenation  would  be  discontinued 
as  soon  as  each  mixed  tribe  had  a  suf&cient  number  of 
women  to  provide  itself  with  wives.  At  this  stage,  inter- 
marriage with  the  aborigines  would  be  strictly  tabooed. 
Thus  endogamous  communities  of  mixed  descent  would 
be  formed  in  the  midst  of  the  aborigines.  But  finality  is 
impossible  in  human  institutions.  The  very  attainment  of 
a  position  of  security  and  dominance  would  call  into  play 
forces  which  in  all  societies  tend  to  produce  distinct  classes 
and  grades,  such  forces  being  strengthened  in  the  case  of 
Aryan  immigrants  by  their  already  well-established  caste 
ideals.  Under  the  influence  of  these  general  and  special 
causes,  as  weU  as  for  administrative  purposes  on  the  clan 
system,  the  settled  community  we  have  had  in  view  would 
naturally  fall,  or  be  divided  into  many  minor  groups,  each 
group  being  made  up  mostly  of  allied  families  united  by  a 
common  occupation. 

The  various  Aryan  mixed  tribes  in  their  new  and  often 
widely  separated  homes  would  be  differentiated  from  one 
another  owing  to  various  causes,  such  as  the  length  of  time 
they  had  been  cut  off  from  the  parent  stock,  the  ethnical 
peculiarities,  religions,  and  civilisations  of  the  particular 
aboriginal  races  amongst  whom  they  had  established  them- 
selves, and  the  extent  to  which  they  had  iutermarried  with 
these  natives.  Each  of  these  distinct  Aryan  settlements 
would  become  the  centre  of  a  new  group  of  castes. 

In  their  isolation,  the  members  of  each  little  band 
claiming  Aryan  descent  would  draw  closer  the  bonds  of 
clanship,  and  though  of  mixed  blood  would  become  prouder 
Aryans,  and  greater  sticklers  for  exclusiveness  than  their 

79 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

stay-at-home  kindred.  And  we  find  this  very  peculiarity 
to-day.  Fanatical  respect  for  the  observance  of  caste 
regulations  does  not  exist  in  an  equal  degree  throughout 
India.  There  is,  as  might  have  been  expected,  no  uniformity 
in  this  respect,  since  the  racial  peculiarities,  the  political 
history,  and  the  prevailing  conditions  of  life  are  extremely 
dissimilar  in  the  different  countries  which  constitute  the 
sub-continent  which  we  designate  India;  but  at  the  same 
time  more  laxity  in  certain  points  is  observable  in  Aryan 
centres,  the  Punjab  for  example,  than  would  be  tolerated  in 
the  more  remote  provinces  of  Madras  and  Bengal,  where 
the  Aryan  element  is  present  in  the  Brahman  caste  alone. 

However  great  may  have  been  the  martial  and  political 
successes  of  the  Aryans  in  the  extensive  regions  south  of 
the  Himalayas,  they  are  probably  credited  with  more  than 
they  achieved;  an  idea  which  derives  support  from  the 
absence  from  India  of  slavery  of  the  kind  conquerors  have 
not  uncommonly  imposed  upon  the  peoples  they  have 
subdued. 

The  ethnological  facts  at  our  command  show  clearly 
that  the  Aryans  were  not  able  to  destroy  or  even  displace 
the  Dra vidian  and  other  races,  which  probably  formed  the 
bulk  of  the  population  of  the  lands  they  invaded.  To  this 
day  the  Dravidian  retains  a  very  conspicuous  and  important 
place  amongst  the  races  of  India,  either  in  a  pure  state 
or  mingled  with  the  Aryans,  Scythians,  and  Mongolians. 
Towards  the  south  and  east  of  the  peninsula  is  the  strong- 
hold of  the  Dravidians,  whilst  the  influence  of  Aryan 
blood  is  most  marked  in  Kashmir,  the  Punjab,  and  Eaj- 
putana,  and,  in  a  less  degree,  in  the  territory  now  known 
as  the  United  Provinces. 

According  to  the  ethnological  map  which  accompanies 
the  latest  Indian  Census  Eeport,  the  Indo-Aryan  race 
has  not  even  a  preponderating  place  in  modern  India, 
its  ethnic  influence  being,  as  already  stated,  confined  to 
Kashmir,  the  Punjab,  Eajputana,  and  the  United  Provinces. 
Yet  even  where  the  population  is  non-Aryan  the  Brahmani- 
cal  religion  is  honoured,  and  Brahmans  hold  the  highest 
place  in  the  social  scale.  It  has  to  be  noted,  however,  that 
the  Brahmans  in  non-Aryan  centres,  though  they  usually 

80 


CASTE  IN   INDIA 

exhibit  Aryan  characteristics,  in  some  cases  belong  un- 
doubtedly to  the  aboriginal  stock,  e.g.,  Mongolians  in 
Assam,  and  Dravidians  in  Madras.^ 

If  we  turn  our  attention  from  the  Brahmans  to  the 
religion  associated  with  them,  we  find  that  the  Hindu 
rehgion  and  the  gods  worshipped  are  by  no  means  identical 
over  India.  Hinduism  as  we  find  it  to-day  is  a  congeries 
of  many  and  various  indigenous  cults,  supplied  with  suitable 
myths  and  legends  designed  to  link  each  with  the  others 
in  some  more  or  less  direct  way.  Hinduism  everywhere 
requires  veneration  of  the  cow,  supports  the  caste  system, 
and  assigns  the  highest  place  in  the  body  politic  to 
the  hereditary  Brahman  priesthood.  Behind  the  local 
Brahmanical  cults  we  have  a  background  of  Pantheism,  with 
belief  in  reincarnations  and  the  doctrine  of  Karma,  this  latter 
being  unknown  to  the  Indo- Aryans  of  the  Vedic  age.  How 
these  momentous  doctrines  were  evolved,  is  a  question  still  in 
obscurity.  Were  they  thought  out  by  the  Indo- Aryans  in 
their  new  home,  or  did  they  find  the  germs  of  them  already 
developed  amongst  one  or  other  of  the  more  advanced 
Dravidian  races  of  the  South  ?  Certain  it  is  that  the  belief  in 
reincarnations  and  Karma — an  essential  feature  of  Hinduism 
as  well  as  of  Buddhism,  Jainism,  and  Sikhism — is  held  by 
a  very  large  proportion  of  the  world's  inhabitants,  not  only 
in  India  but  far  beyond  its  borders. 

Three  points  in  the  foregoing  statements  call  for  special 
consideration:  the  remarkable  position  accorded  to  the 
Brahmans  throughout  India  even  in  vast  territories  where 
the  Aryan  race  is  not  ethnically  represented ;  the  fact 
that  Brahmans  are  not  always  of  the  Aryan  race;  and 
that  under  the  common  name,  Hinduism,  are  embraced 
many  very  dissimilar  cults. 

Now  the  very  exceptional  position  of  the  Brahmans  is 
a  fact  of  the  greatest  significance,  for  it  suggests  that  it 
was  the  Aryan  priestly  caste  which  made  an  intellectual 
conquest  of  lands  where  the  fighting  Aryans  never  estab- 
lished themselves.  That  the  Brahmans  by  intermarrying 
with  the  alien  races  lost  their  pure  nationality  in  the 
course  of  time  need  not  be  doubted;  but  the  fact  that 
'  Dr.  J.  N.  Bhattacharjee,  Hitidtt  Castes  and  Sects,  pp.  58,  69,  and  96. 
F  8l 


Of  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

in  the  Dravidian  and  Mongolo-Dravidian  countries  of  India 
Brahmans  are  sometimes  not  of  Aryan  rac3  at  all  is,  I 
believe,  due  to  the  assumption  of  the  Brahmanic  name,  with 
its  status  and  privileges,  by  non-Aryans ;  a  surmise  which 
is  supported  by  the  case  of  the  numerically  insignificant 
caste  of  Amma  Kodagas  or  Kaveri  Brahmans  of  Coorg, 
who  being  the  indigenous  priesthood  devoted  to  the 
worship  of  the  Goddess  Amma,  have  set  up  Brahmanical 
pretensions.^  To  this  may  be  added  the  case  of  the 
Bhojakas  of  Jvalamukhi  in  the  Punjab,  who,  although 
claiming  to  belong  to  the  Hindu  priesthood,  are  believed 
to  be  descendants  of  a  servile  class  connected  from  of  old 
with  the  famous  temple  there.^ 

The  heterogeneity  of  Hinduism  is  to  my  mind  a  result 
of  the  Brahman  conquest  of  India.  As  missionaries,  the 
Brahmans  would  receive  into  their  fold,  as  indeed  they 
have  been  known  to  do  in  quite  recent  times,  any  tribe  or 
clan  that  agreed  to  accept  their  spiritual  guidance  and 
leadership.  They  would,  with  rare  liberality,  find  places 
in  the  Hindu  Pantheon  for  the  gods  of  the  tribes  won  over 
to  Brahmanism,  and  would  guarantee  the  integrity  of 
time-honoured  tribal  customs,  especially  those  regulating 
marriage. 

By  these  means  the  Brahmans  would  facilitate  the 
spread  of  Brahmanism,  while  securing  the  allegiance  of 
their  new  disciples.  For  the  maintenance  of  the  position 
and  influence  of  the  priestly  order  over  their  flock,  it  was  of 
the  highest  importance  that  their  hereditary  superiority 
should  be  acknowledged  and  upheld.  Nothing  could  pos- 
sibly conduce  more  to  that  end  than  the  acceptance  by  the 
people  of  a  divinely  sanctioned  caste  system  of  which  the 
priests  should  be  recognised  as  the  unapproachable  heads, 
and  it  would  be  for  these  priests  to  encourage  the  formation 
and  perpetuation  of  such  a  caste  system  by  every  means 
at  their  command. 

Each  group  of  Brahmans  successful  in  a  new  territory 
would  desire  to  exploit  the  tribes  which  they  had  been 
instrumental  in  bringing  within  the  pale  of  Brahmanism, 

'  Dr.  John  Wilson,  Indian  Cade,  vol.  ii.  pp.  72,  73. 
^  Idem,  vol.  ii.  p.  133. 

82 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

and  to  ensure  that  such  tribes  should  belong,  as  it  were,  to 
their  own  particular  family  for  ever.  Nothing  could  further 
these  objects  better  than  that  annexed  tribes  should  be  crys- 
tallised, as  it  were,  into  distinct  groups  owning  allegiance 
to  their  own  special  Brahmans,  and  separated  by  social 
barriers  from  other  tribes  annexed  and  exploited  by  other 
successful  Brahman  missionaries. 

For  the  better  understanding  of  the  situation  which  I 
have  endeavoured  to  picture,  let  us  imagine  that  in  Europe 
and  America  all  contributions  towards  Foreign  Christian 
Missions  ceased;  so  that  the  missionaries  abroad  in  Asia 
and  Africa  would  have  no  pecuniary  or  other  support  from 
home. 

The  Christian  missionaries  in  India,  faithful  to  their 
labour  of  love,  would,  we  may  presume,  continue  to  live  in 
the  land  of  their  adoption,  for  the  good  of  that  land ; 
but  notwithstanding  their  unselfishness  they  would  be 
driven  to  make  what  living  they  could  out  of  the  generosity 
of  their  several  flocks.  Now  these  flocks,  though  all  pro- 
fessing Christianity,  would  belong  to  distinct  and  sometimes 
hostile  denominations.  To  ensure  their  own  subsistence, 
and  that  of  their  children,  the  missionaries  of  each  sect 
would  endeavour,  even  more  than  they  do  at  present,  to 
keep  their  respective  flocks  uncontaminated  by  inter- 
marriage or  intercourse  with  the  unconverted,  and  they 
would  strenuously  guard  their  spiritual  children  from 
adopting  the  dangerous  opinions  and  objectionable  prac- 
tices of  other  Christian  sects.  Common  prudence  would 
dictate  these  feelings,  and  self-interest,  coupled  with  paternal 
solicitude,  would  suggest  to  each  missionary  group  the 
desirability  of  making  their  spiritual  calling  hereditary. 
Cut  ofif  from  the  home  land,  the  Christian  missionaries  of 
alien  race  would,  under  the  imagined  conditions,  doubtless 
foi-m  a  distinctive  caste.  Left  to  their  own  resources, 
uncantrolled  by  a  central  authm'ity,  they  would  soon  learn 
for  their  own  advantage  to  relax  the  rules  for  the  admission 
of  converts  to  their  fold,  and  many  customs  and  even  beliefs 
would  then  be  tolerated  and  even  accepted,  which  under 
existing  circumstances  are  rigorously  excluded. 

Now  to  my  thinking   the  position  of    the   Brahman 

83 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

missionaries  in  the  midst  of  the  aborigines  of  Dravidian 
stock  was  in  many  respects  analogous  to  that  of  the 
Christian  missionaries  in  the  hypothetical  situation  in  which 
I  have  just  envisaged  them. 

Imitation  on  the  part  of  the  Dravidian  tribes,  clans,  or 
groups  of  families  won  over  to  Brahmanism  would  facili- 
tate the  establishment  of  the  clan  or  caste  system,  as  the 
aborigines  would  naturally  adopt  the  customs  and  more 
especially  the  prejudices  of  their  spiritual  guides,  and  strive 
to  fit  into  the  new  system  such  endogamous  or  other 
marriage  rules  as  obtained  amongst  themselves.  Even  to-day 
this  process  of  transformation  and  the  origination  of  caste 
is  going  on,  especially  in  the  eastern  parts  of  India,  and 
ought  to  be  taken  into  account. 

Of  imitation,  which  in  such  cases  is  so  powerful  an  agent 
in  the  moulding  of  habits  and  customs,  we  see  something 
in  the  contemporary  doings  of  native  Christians,  who  are 
developing  a  marked  tendency  to  adopt  the  manners  and 
especially  the  prejudices  of  their  European  models. 

Some  castes  probably  originated  in  offshoot  immigrant 
bands  being  entirely  cut  off  from  communication  with  the 
parent  stock  or  other  branches  of  the  family.  Unable  to 
preserve  the  purity  of  their  blood,  language,  or  religion,  such 
bands  would  in  their  isolation  form  exclusive  communities 
of  their  own,  falling  as  usual  into  occupational  groups. 

From  the  particulars  which  I  have  placed  before  the 
reader,  it  would  appear  that  the  genesis  and  evolution  of 
the  diverse  castes  which  now  exist  in  India,  or  have  existed 
in  times  past,  are  due  not  to  one,  but  to  a  multiplicity  of 
different,  subtle,  and  concurrent  causes,  some  too  illusive  to 
be  ascertained  or  gauged.  But  on  the  other  hand  there  are 
undoubtedly  a  few  of  these  causes  so  fundamental  and  of 
such  general  application  that  their  influence  and  effect  can 
be  clearly  traced  throughout  the  long  history  of  caste 
development.  Nationality  is  one  of  these,  for  it  cannot,  I 
think,  be  questioned  that  a  number  of  the  different  Hindu 
castes  originated,  in  all  probability,  in  the  first  instance 
from  distinct  if  minor  nationalities,  tribes,  or  clans,  having 
their  own  customs  and  psychological  characteristics.  Some 
local  castes  are  obviously  aggregations  of  famihes  having  a 

84 


CASTE  IN   INDIA 

common  hereditary  occupation  or  trade ;  while  other  castes 
have  undoubtedly  arisen  from  religious  (sectarian)  schisms. 

Mr.  Risley's  view  that  caste  in  India  has  an  ethnic  basis 
and  arose  out  of  conflicts  between  white  and  black  races  in 
the  olden  time,  is  to  my  mind  substantially  correct ;  but  I 
believe  that  what  I  have  urged  regarding  the  deliberate  and 
conscious  action  of  the  hereditary  Brahmanic  priesthood,  in 
promoting  and  consolidating  the  caste  system  for  the  en- 
hancement of  their  own  power  and  pecuniary  advantage,  is 
as  important  a  factor  in  the  case  as  any  other,  and  is  indeed 
the  vital  peculiarity  of  the  Hindu  caste  system,  while  giving 
it  a  quasi-religious  dignity.  Brahmans  wherever  they  went 
amongst  the  aborigines  claiiiud  the  first  place  in  society  by 
virtue  of  caste,  and  in  so  doing  had  necessarily,  for  the 
maintenance  of  their  own  pretensions,  to  build  up  or 
encourage  the  growth  of  a  social  system  in  which  caste 
should  be  the  fundamental  feature.  Only  in  a  recognised 
caste  system  could  their  pretensions  be  treated  with  defer- 
ence. Much  religious  and  ritualistic  latitude  had  to  be 
conceded  in  order  to  secure  and  maintain  the  Brahmanic 
ascendancy,  especially  in  places  far  removed  from  the  Aryan 
homeland;  and  it  is,  I  believe,  to  this  enforced  tolerance 
of  local  cults,  and  the  absence  of  any  central  authority,  that 
the  great  divei*sity  of  religions  embraced  under  Hinduism 
is  attributable. 


85 


CASTE  IN  mmA— continued 

Section  VI. — Caste  cousidered  with  respect  to  its  political  aud 
ecouomic  aspects  and  its  probable  future. 

GONTEASTING  aristocracies  with  democracies, 
Dr.  John  Beattie  Crozier,  in  his  book  Civilisa- 
tion and  Progress,  makes  certain  remarks 
bearing  upon  the  Indian  caste  system  which 
as  they  represent  the  ordinary  European 
views  on  the  matter  may  profitably  detain 
us  a  moment. 

"  Besides  in  democracies,"  says  Dr.  Crozier,  "  where 
the  least  possible  restraint  is  put  on  freedom  of  action, 
only  such  restraints  are  put  on  freedom  or  expression 
of  thought  as  are  indispensable  for  common  morality ; 
whereas,  in  aristocracies,  besides  these  restraints,  there 
is  the  more  minute  and  circumstantial  pressure,  imposed 
on  each  individual,  by  a  host  of  unwritten  customs, 
prejudices,  sentiments,  and  traditions.  Take  India  and 
America  as  examples ;  one,  of  the  most  rigid  of  all 
forms  of  aristocracy,  that  of  caste;  the  other,  of  the 
purest  and  most  advanced  of  democracies;  and  what 
do  we  find  ?  In  India,  the  tyranny  of  custom,  opinion, 
and  mode  of  life  is  so  great,  that  the  slightest  infringe- 
ment is  followed  by  a  loss  of  caste,  and  the  loss  of 
caste  is  tantamount  to  a  sentence  of  execution;  and, 
from  old  habit  and  custom,  this  tyranny  is  worn  so 
easily  and  smoothly  that  men  walk  about  to  all  out- 
ward appearance  as  if  they  were  really  free.  But  in 
America  freedom  of  thought  and  sentiment  is  so  com- 
plete, that  you  have  the  spectacle,  hitherto  unknown, 
of  Catholics  and  Protestants,  Atheists  and  Mormons, 
Freelovers,  Shakers,  and  Quakers  all  living  quietly  side 
by  side  in  peaceful  toleration ;  and  the  sense  of  liberty 
86 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

so  acute,  that  the  slightest  restraint  galls  the  spirit 
and  raises  aloud  the  cry  of  tyranny  and  oppression, 
which  the  effete  aristocracies  hearing  from  a  distance 
regard  with  secret  satisfaction  as  the  forerunner  of 
disruption  and  ruin."  ^ 

With  what  feelings  "  the  effete  aristocracies  "  may  regard 
American  protests  against  the  slightest  restraint  imposed 
by  authority  does  not  concern  me,  but  I  feel  strongly  that 
the  contrast  which  Dr.  Crozier  has  instituted,  in  the  above- 
quoted  extract,  between  "  America,"  which  I  presume  means 
the  United  States,  and  India,  is  extremely  infelicitous,  for 
whatever  may  be  the  "  freedom  of  thought  and  sentiment " 
enjoyed  at  the  present  time  in  the  United  States,  quite 
as  much  "freedom  of  thought  and  sentiment"  as  regards 
philosophical  and  religious  matters  is  now  and  has  always 
been  enjoyed  in  caste-ridden  India,  where  for  ages  the 
greatest  variety  of  sects  and  of  religions  also — not  exclud- 
ing various  forms  of  Christianity — have  existed  peacefully, 
even  as  they  do  at  the  present  time,  while  many  practices, 
polygamy  for  example — fully  sanctioned  by  the  Old  Testa- 
ment— are  recognised  as  lawful  in  India,  though  not  toler- 
ated in  free  America,  where  the  Mormons  have  been  forced 
to  give  it  up.  Again,  it  is  an  undeniable  fact  (as  shown  in  a 
previous  section)  that  in  the  United  States  caste  prejudices 
on  the  part  of  the  white  races  arising  out  of  industrial  com- 
petition between  them  and  the  black  and  yellow  races  are 
even  more  conspicuous,  vehement,  intolerant,  and  inimical 
to  true  liberty  and  equaUty  than  they  are  in  India  even 
under  foreign  rule.  Further,  Dr.  Crozier's  idea,  which 
appears  to  be  a  very  common  one,  that  the  slightest  infringe- 
ment of  caste  customs  in  India  is  visited  with  loss  of  caste, 
which  "  is  tantamount  to  a  sentence  of  execution,"  is,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  absolutely  incorrect.  Permanent  loss  of 
caste  is  an  infliction  of  veoy  rare  occurrence,  and,  though 
socially  a  very  serious  trouble,  it  does  not,  as  I  shall  presently 
show,  involve  under  British  rule  the  loss  or  impairment  of 
any  civil  or  legal  rights.  Looking  at  all  the  facts  without 
prejudice  I  am  inchned  to  hold  that  a  larger  proportion  of 
men  and  women  lose  their  places  irreparably  in  the  ranks 

^  Civilisatimi  and  Progress  (1888),  pp.  356,  357. 

2>7    ■ 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

of  "Western  than  of  Hindu  society,  because  amongst  the 
Hindus  there  are  prescribed  methods — suitable  religious 
ceremonies,  purificatory  rites,  and  reparation  —  by  which 
lost  status  might  be  regained,  whereas  no  such  authoritative 
or  recognised  provision  is  made  for  the  rehabilitation  of  the 
offender  against  society  in  the  West. 

The  cool  assumption  of  freedom  from  petty  prejudices 
and  from  the  tyranny  of  custom  which  Westerns  commonly 
make  in  their  supercilious  criticisms  of  Oriental  social  and 
religious  life  would  be  amusing  were  it  not  grossly  inaccurate 
and  needlessly  offensive.  The  tyranny  of  custom  is  not 
peculiar  to  India  or  to  the  East.  Occidental  or  Oriental, 
each  has  his  own  more  or  less  minute  and  rigid  rules  for 
the  conduct  of  domestic  life,  the  regulation  of  social  inter- 
course, modes  of  eating  and  drinking,  and  the  ordering  of 
official  functions.  Each  has  his  own  canons  with  respect 
to  dress,  behaviour,  etiquette,  and  honour,  far  more  com- 
plicated perhaps  in  the  West  than  in  the  East.  But  the 
Western,  while  conforming  docilely,  even  slavishly,  to  the 
conventions  which  govern  private  and  official  intercourse 
at  home,  contemplates  with  raised  eyebrows  the  dreadful 
burden  which  the  Eastern  bears  unmurmuringly.  But  the 
Asiatic's  burden  is  in  ordinary  life  no  heavier  than  his  own ; 
only  it  is  different.     That  is  all ! 

Amongst  the  more  important  forces  now  at  work  in 
determining  the  future  of  the  caste  system  is  the  British 
Government  in  India,  whose  attitude  in  this  matter  deserves 
attention.  As  a  rule,  the  British  Indian  Government  ignores 
and  thereby  discourages  all  caste  distinctions,  and  by 
placing  all  Indians  upon  a  legal  equality  declines,  no  doubt 
rightly,  to  concede  any  special  privileges  to  men  of  the 
superior  castes  in  their  relations  with  their  fellow-country- 
men. It  has  further  by  law  deliberately  undermined  the 
coercive  power  of  caste  as  a  recognised  legal  institution,  for 
Act  XXI.  of  1850  rules  as  follows : — 

"  So  much  of  any  law  or  usage  now  in  force  within 
the  territories  of  the  East  India  Company  as  inflicts 
on  any  person  forfeiture  of  rights  and  property,  or 
may  be  held  in  any  way  to  impair  or  affect  any  right 
of  inheritance  by  reason  of  his  or  her  having  been 
88 


CASTE   IN  INDIA 

excluded  from  the  communion  of  any  religion  or  being 
deprived  of  caste,  shall  cease  to  be  enforced  as  law  in 
the  Courts  of  the  East  India  Company  and  in  the 
Courts  established  by  Eoyal  Charter  within  the  said 
territories." 

In  other  words,  no  man,  whatever  be  his  offences  against 
his  caste,  shall,  on  account  of  merely  such  offences,  suffer 
any  forfeiture  of  rights  or  property,  even  after  being  expelled 
from  the  society  of  his  caste-fellows.  That  the  law  in 
question  has  seriously  weakened  the  power  previously 
enjoyed  by  both  Hinduism  and  Islam  for  the  restraining 
or  punishing  of  apostasy  is  obvious.  This  point  has  been 
acknowledged,  discussed,  and  justified  by  that  well-known 
jurist  Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen.^ 

This  attitude  of  the  paramount  authority  towards  the 
ancient  cast«  regulations,  due  though  it  be  to  a  natural 
want  of  sympathy  with  Hindu  ideals,  may  possibly  have 
proved  acceptable  to  some  sections  of  the  lowest  castes  of 
the  community.  By  the  rest  it  has  been  ordinarily  accepted 
and  endured  with  the  meekness  which  is  characteristic  of 
the  Hindus;  but  beneath  the  calm  exterior  of  patient 
acquiescence  there  may  always  be  found  a  sensitiveness 
not  far  removed  from  suppressed  u-ritation,  and  occasionally 
some  positive  act  of  culpable  official  ignorance  or  high- 
handedness has  so  outraged  the  deep-seated  caste  prejudices 
of  a  section,  or  it  may  be  of  the  enth-e  Hindu  community, 
that  the  resentment  aroused  by  it  has  had  deplorable 
results.  It  would  not  be  difficult  to  cull  from  the  records 
of  the  past  many  examples  to  illustrate  this  statement; 
but  it  will  suffice  to  take  only  the  most  startling  instance 
of  all,  the  great  Sepoy  revolt  of  1857-58,  writ  large  in  blood- 
stained characters  across  the  pages  of  Indian  history. 

Although  this  is  not  the  place  for  a  discussion  of  the 
many  causes  which  led  to  that  great  upheaval,  such  as 
interference  with  immemorial  religious  customs  and  breaches 
of  political  faith  on  the  part  of  the  British  in  India,  I  may 
be  permitted  to  state  my  conviction  that  the  Mutiny  would 
never  have  attained  the  formidable  proportions  it  did  had 

'  "Legislation  under  Lord  Mayo,"  being  chapter  viii.  vol.  ii.  of  Sir 
W.  W.  Hunter's  Lift  ofOu  Earl  of  Mayo. 

89 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

it  not  been  for  the  egregious  and  criminal  folly  which  led 
to  the  cartridges  issued  to  the  Sepoys  from  the  Government 
manufactories  being  greased  with  the  fat  of  hoth  cows 
and  pigs,  the  former  abhorred  by  all  Hindus  on  account  of 
their  veneration  of  the  cow,  the  latter  repugnant  to  all 
Muhammadans  because  of  its  impurity  and  condemnation 
by  their  Prophet. 

For  the  comprehension  of  the  matter  it  is  necessary  to 
bear  in  mind  that  the  muskets  for  which  the  cartridges 
were  supplied  were  all  muzzle-loaders,  that  the  cartridge 
case,  which  held  the  gunpowder  and  bullet  in  two  compart- 
ments, was  simply  made  of  strong  paper  (known,  for  this 
very  reason,  as  cartridge  paper)  well  greased  to  exclude 
damp  from  the  gunpowder.  The  military  regulations 
required  that  the  paper  over  the  gunpowder  end  of  the 
cartridge  should  be  bitten  off  by  the  Sepoy  before  inserting 
the  cartridge  into  the  muzzle  of  the  barrel,  in  order  that 
the  powder  might  be  set  free  to  run  down  to  the  nipple 
fixed  at  the  lower  end.  The  bullet  with  the  paper  case,  of 
course,  descended  on  top  of  the  gunpowder,  and  both  were 
driven  home  with  the  ramrod.  Thus  every  Sepoy  was 
forced,  each  time  he  loaded  his  musket,  not  only  to  handle, 
but  actually  to  introduce  into  his  mouth  the  fat  of  both 
kine  and  swine. 

Now  although  the  tendency  of  the  caste  system  is 
undoubtedly  to  break  up  the  body  politic  into  more  or  less 
discordant  communities,  there  is  yet  one  deep-seated  religious 
sentiment  common  to  all  Hindu  castes  alike,  and  that  is 
profound,  unreasoning  veneration  of  the  cow  as  a  sacred 
animal,  with  the  consequent  horror  of  introducing  beef  into 
the  mouth  in  any  form,  and,  strange  to  say,  it  was  this  one 
universal  caste  prejudice  which  was  contemptuously  out- 
raged by  the  greased  cartridges  issued  to  the  Sepoys,  amongst 
whom  were  serving  a  number  of  Brahmans. 

Some,  I  am  aware,  discredit  the  story  of  the  greased 
cartridges ;  but  since  the  momentous  days  of  1857-58, 
which  I  passed  in  Calcutta,  I  have  myself  had  no  doubt 
about  the  matter,  and  was,  therefore,  not  surprised  to  read 
the  following  in  Lord  Eoberts'  important  book.  Forty-one 
Years  in  India : 

90 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

"  The  recent  researches  of  Mr.  Forrest  in  the  records 
of  the  Government  of  India  prove  that  the  lubricating 
mixture  used  in  preparing  the  cartridges  was  actually 
composed  of  the  objectionable  ingredients,  cow's  fat 
and  lard,  and  that  incredible  disregard  of  the  soldiers' 
religious  prejudices  was  displayed  in  the  manufacture 
of  these  cartridges.  When  the  Sepoys  complained  that 
to  bite  them  would  destroy  their  caste,  they  were 
solemnly  assured  by  their  officers  that  they  had  been 
greased  with  a  perfectly  unobjectionable  mixture.  The 
officers,  understanding,  as  all  who  have  come  in  contact 
with  natives  are  supposed  to  understand,  their  intense 
abhorrence  of  touching  the  flesh  or  fat  of  the  sacred 
cow  or  the  unclean  pig,  did  not  believe  it  possible 
that  the  authorities  could  have  been  so  regardless  of 
the  Sepoys'  feelings  as  to  have  allowed  it  to  be  used 
in  preparing  their  ammunition ;  they,  therefore,  made 
this  statement  in  perfect  good  faith.  But  nothing  was 
easier  than  for  the  men  belonging  to  the  regiments 
quartered  near  Calcutta  to  ascertain,  from  the  low- 
caste  native  workmen  employed  in  manufacturing 
the  cartridges  at  the  Fort- William  arsenal,  that  the 
assurances  of  their  officers  were  not  in  accordance  with 
facts,  and  they  were  thus  prepared  to  credit  the  fables 
which  the  sedition-mongers  so  sedulously  spread  abroad, 
to  the  effect  that  the  Government  they  sei^ved  and  the 
officers  who  commanded  them  had  entered  into  a 
deliberate  conspiracy  to  undermine  their  religion."  ^ 

After  what  has  been  stated  in  previous  sections  of  this 
paper  in  respect  to  the  pollution  which  a  Hindu  suffers 
from  even  involuntary  contact  with  forbidden  viands,  it  is 
unnecessary  to  enlarge  upon  the  feelings  of  burning  resent- 
ment and  fanatical  hatred  which  would  be  kindled  in  the 
breast  of  any  Sepoy  at  finding  that,  by  what  would  seem 
to  him  to  be  the  deliberate  act  of  the  constituted  authorities, 
he  was  being  daily  subjected  to  a  process  of  defilement 
which,  while  degrading  him  in  his  own  estimation,  rendered 
him  imfit  to  hold  personal  intercourse  even  with  his  own 
kindred  and  friends  in  his  native  village,  whence  he  had 
willingly  come  forth  to  fight  for  rulers  who,  without 
provocation   on   his   part,   treated    him  and  his   religious 

'  Lord  Roberts,  Forty -one  Years  in  India,  vol.  i.  pp.  431  and  432. 
91 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

scruples  with  immeasurable  contempt.  Who  can  wonder 
at  the  result  ? 

The  events  just  discussed  show  clearly  that  caste  in  India 
is  a  political  force  to  be  reckoned  with ;  but  I  would  direct 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  circumstances  connected 
with  the  case  of  the  greased  cartridges  are  so  very  extra- 
ordinary and  exceptional,  that  the  recurrence  of  anything 
even  remotely  resembling  them  is  highly  improbable.  The 
general  effect  of  the  caste  system  has  been  to  subdivide 
the  nation  into  so  many  distinct  and  independent,  often 
antipathetic  social  groups,  that  vigorous  and  sustained 
combined  action  for  any  great  common  object  has  been 
rendered  extremely  difficult,  except  in  the  very  rare  cases 
where  the  caste  system  itself  seemed  to  be  endangered  or 
caste  feeling  cruelly  outraged.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
pride  and  exclusiveness  of  caste — not  dependent  on  wealth 
or  worldly  position,  but  on  an  inalienable  birthright — may 
have  kept  the  Hindus  during  many  centuries  of  foreign 
dominion  from  sinking  to  the  dead  level  of  serfdom;  and 
it  is  quite  conceivable,  indeed  not  at  all  improbable,  that 
the  various  caste  organisations  controlled  by  recognised 
caste  leaders  may  be  employed  most  effectively  for  special 
political  ends,  especially  as  already  certain  important  castes 
hold  regular  congresses  and  conferences  of  their  own. 
Nevertheless  it  cannot  be  denied  that  living  always  within 
and  for  the  caste,  with  little  interest  beyond  it,  has  hitherto 
tended  to  circumscribe  each  Hindu's  outlook  to  such  a 
degree  that  the  idea  of  nationality  is  not  natural  to  his 
understanding  nor  the  sentiment  of  patriotism  to  his  heart. 

Mr.  Oscar  Browning,  a  cultured  impressionist,  "  thinking 
imperially,"  says  in  a  recent  book : 

"My  visit  to  India  persuaded  me  to  tolerate  purdah 
and  to  have  an  admiration  for  caste,  and  I  should  be  sorry 
to  hear  either  of  them  had  been  overthrown."  ^ 

Yes,  and  many  another  imperialist  would,  no  doubt,  be 
sorry  to  see  the  caste  system  die  out  in  India,  for  such  a 
change  would  inevitably  add  very  considerably  indeed  to 
the  task  of  governing  and  retaining  England's  immense 
Empire  in  the  East. 

'  Impressions  of  Indian  Travel,  p.  230. 
92 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

Besides  the  political  there  are  other  aspects  of  the 
Hindu  caste  system  which  call  for  attention.  Considered 
from  the  industrial  point  of  view,  the  Indian  trade  castes, 
though  differing  in  many  respects  from  the  trades  guilds 
of  mediaeval  Europe,  have  played  the  part  of  such  guilds 
in  respect  to  the  Indian  handicrafts,  and  helped  the  pre- 
servation of  ancient  arts  in  no  small  degree,  and  to-day  the 
value  of  the  Indian  caste  as  a  co-operative  society  in  full 
working  order  has  been  so  far  recognised  that  the  official 
Registrar  of  Co-operative  Credit  Societies  in  the  United 
Provinces  recently  suggested  that  the  caste  should  be 
made  the  unit  of  co-operation.^ 

Viewed  from  the  ethical  standpoint,  we  are  bound  to 
allow  that  the  organisation  of  the  Hindu  castes  and  sub- 
castes  of  closely  allied  family  groups  has  proved  an  effective 
agency  for  the  suppression  of  immorality  and  vice.  That 
it  has  been  very  useful  in  the  support  and  relief  of  the 
destitute  poor  is  equally  undeniable.  In  connection  with 
this  latter  point  I  would  make  a  passing  reference  to  what 
was  said,  not  long  ago,  by  Mr.  J.  D.  Eees  at  a  meeting  of 
the  Society  of  Arts,  to  the  effect  that  there  was  a  larger 
proportion  of  people  in  receipt  of  relief  at  the  expense  of 
the  State  in  England,  in  a  normal  year,  than  there  was  in 
India  during  the  height  of  the  (recent)  famine.^  To  obviate 
any  misunderstanding  of  the  significance  of  this  statement, 
and  to  place  it  in  its  proper  light,  it  should  be  added  that 
there  are  no  poor  rates  for  the  support  of  paupere  in  India. 
If  such  rates  were  available,  I  should  not  like  to  predict 
what  the  result  would  be. 

Turning  to  quite  another  aspect  of  the  caste  system, 
it  may  be  noted  that  by  it  has  been  kept  alive  for  ages 
the  doctrine  of  the  dignity  of  the  hereditary  priesthood, 
and  incidentally  of  learning  as  represented  by  that  privileged 
class.  Caste,  through  its  stubborn  conservatism,  has  prob- 
ably been  the  most  efficient  practical  means  of  safeguarding 
Hinduism  and  maintaining  its  principles,  traditions,  and 
customs  against  religious  reformers  within  its  own  body, 
and  also  against  the  aggressions  of  alien  religions,  being, 

'  Agricullural  Journal  of  Ivdia^  No.  2,  1906. 
"  Journal  of  the  Society  of  Arts,  3rd  March  1905. 

93 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

as  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Wilson,  of  Bombay,  wrote,  "  the  grand 
obstacle  to  the  triumph  of  the  Gospel  of  Peace  in  India " ; 
because,  as  a  recent  writer  quaintly  puts  it,  the  keen 
Hindu  mind  perceives  that  "Redemption  must  mean  loss 
of  caste."  ^ 

Consequently,  and  very  naturally,  the  Hindu  caste 
system  has  incurred  the  unqualified  condemnation  of 
Christian  missionaries,  and  of  all  who  are  interested  in  the 
Christianisation  of  India.  And,  without  doubt,  the  inter- 
relation between  caste  and  the  foundations  of  Hinduism 
is  both  intimate  and  peculiar. 

We  may  not  know  how  or  when  certain  hymns  were 
written  or  incorporated  with  the  sacred  books  of  the  Hindus, 
but  it  is  none  the  less  undeniable  {vide  page  50)  that  the 
advocates  of  the  caste  system  can  now  appeal  for  support 
to  the  earliest  of  the  Hindu  Scriptures,  the  Vedas  themselves, 
as  regards  the  establishment  of  the  four  great  varnas.  Hence 
if  the  Vedas  were  to  be  given  up,  caste  would  lose  its 
earliest  recorded  sanction;  but  who  would  expect  the 
privileged  hereditary  castes  to  resign  their  advantages  ? 
Therefore  while  these  advantages  are  worth  fighting  for, 
the  sanctity  and  authority  of  the  Vedas  and  the  Scriptures 
based  upon  them  will  be  strenuously  maintained. 

However,   under    the    pressure    of    the    new   political 

and  commercial  conditions,  a  change  is  coming  over  the 

spirit  of   India.     The  worship   of  wealth  is  afiecting   the 

Indian  in  a  striking  degree.     "It  is  depriving  us,"  said  a 

young  Hindu  to  me,  "  of  our  Brahmans,  who  now  rush  into 

secular  employment  as  the  only  means  of  obtaining  the 

■    respect  to  which  they  have  been  accustomed." 

I A       As    the   British    Government    has    honours    only    for 

I   jthe  well-to-do,  a  desire   for   the  possession   of  wealth   is 

/assuming    a     larger    and    larger    place    in    the     Indian 

mind,  although    it    is,   I   understand,   still    true    that  in 

Indian  society  at  social  gatherings  members  of  the  same 

caste   sit   together,  high    and   low,  rich    and    poor   alike, 

without  too  invidious  distinctions,  and    that  an  indigent 

Imember  of  the  clan  may  still  be  handed  the  hookah  from 


! 


Amy  Wilson-Carniichael,  Things  as  they  are :  Mission  Work  in  Southern 
India,  p.  20. 

94 


CASTE  IN  INDIA 

the  lips  of  the  prosperous  man.  But  it  may  be  safely 
predicted  that  respect  for  poverty  and  Brahma  Vidya 
amongst  this  people  will  rapidly  disappear,  as,  stimulated 
by  Western  example,  the  worship  of  Mammon  takes  a 
stronger  hold  upon  him. 

Amongst  the  forces  inimical  to  caste  at  the  present 
time  are  the  railways,  which  under  British  management 
do  not  show  any  favour  to  that  institution.  Promiscuous 
travelling  now  prevaOs  throughout  the  country,  and,  every 
day  in  the  year,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  hoice-homs  sit  in 
contact  with  Sudras,  outcasts,  and  Mlecchas  on  the  levelling 
benches  of  the  railway  cars,  conveniently  closing  their  eyes 
,  to  the  terrible  contamination  which  such  contiguity  involves, 
/  or  else  enduring  as  best  they  can  the  really  considerable 
'  hardships  to  which  they  are  exposed.^  Whether  promiscuous 
railway  travelling  will  in  the  long-run  affect  Hinduism  itself 
we  may  well  doubt,  but  it  must  lead  to  a  relaxation  or  a 
more  liberal  interpretation  of  the  stringent  rules  of  the 
caste  system  as  regards  the  specific  issue  of  the  con- 
taminating effect  of  contact  with  men  of  inferior  castes, 
and  non-Hindus.  We  may  trust  the  astute  Brahmans  to 
find  a  way  of  reconciling  convenience  with  duty  in  this 
matter. 

Like  the  railways,  public  hospitals  and  jails  are  institu- 
tions which,  in  their  way,  are  inimical  to  the  caste  system, 
as  within  their  walls  the  claims  of  caste  are  deliberately 
ignored,  sometimes,  I  believe,  more  than  ignored.  In 
schools  and  colleges  too,  persons  of  all  castes,  except  the 
lowest,  and  of  different  religions  sit  together  in  the  same 
classrooms,  join  in  the  same  games  on  the  playground,  and 
often  reside  in  the  boarding-houses  attached  to  some  of 
these  seminaries. 

^  A  couiJe  of  years  ago  at  a  public  meeting,  held  in  Bangalore,  a  Pandit 
of  Benares  discussed  the  inconveniences  sufiFered  by  Brahmans  while 
travelling  on  railways.  The  Pandit  stated  that  the  Brahman,  unlike  the 
other  passengers,  would  not  eat  in  cars  or  drink  water  when  there  were 
present  men  of  other  castes.  Consequently  the  Brahman  had  to  starve 
during  the  journey.  The  majority  of  the  Brahmans  travellefl  in  third-class 
cars,  and  their  condition  Avas  the  more  miserable  as  they  had  to  mix  with 
unclean  people.  "What  he  wanted  was  the  provision  of  se^jarate  cars  for  the 
use  of  Brahman  passengers,  as  had  long  been  provided  for  Euroi»eans  and 
Eurasians  travelling  third  class. 

95 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

There  is  in  the  Sepoy  army  a  mingling  of  different  castes, 
at  any  rate  during  the  performance  of  military  duties,  and 
many  minor  prejudices  no  doubt  get  rubbed  away  by  daily 
association  with  other  than  caste  mates ;  and  the  more  so 
when,  as  comrades  in  arms,  common  dangers  and  death  itself 
are  faced  by  them  together. 

Every  year  hundreds  of  Indian  gentlemen  visit  Europe 
for  purposes  of  study  or  mere  pleasure,  and  in  doing  so 
wittingly  transgress  a  well-established  caste  rule  prohibiting 
Hindus  from  crossing  the  ocean  or,  indeed,  any  of  the 
boundaries  of  India.  While  abroad  these  gentlemen  fling 
to  the  winds  many  of  the  cherished  prejudices  of  the  caste 
system  in  which  they  have  been  reared,  and  although  when 
they  return  home  these  samu-drayais,  after  purification, 
resume  the  obligations  of  the  system,  it  can  never  be  to 
them  what  it  once  was.^  If,  however,  in  this  connection 
I  should  be  expected  to  state  that  with  the  spread  of 
English  education  the  caste  system  will  disappear,  I  must 
say  I  am  by  no  means  prepared  to  go  so  far,  for  I  have 
known  many  Indian  gentlemen,  highly  educated  and  holding 
very  good  positions  in  State  departments,  who  were  in  no- 
wise anxious  to  free  themselves  or  their  children  from  the 
restraints  of  the  caste  system,  and  it  does  not  seem  to  me 
that  education  alone  will  effect  the  great  things  which  are 
expected  of  it. 

Hindu  Governments  always  did  uphold  caste  distinctions 
and  caste  privileges,  and  when  practicable  they  do  so  now, 
as  in  Nepal.  But  under  British  rule  it  is  quite  different, 
and  able  and  worthy  men  of  inferior  caste  rise  to  official 
positions  in  which  they  have  men  of  higher  castes  under 
their  orders.  Such  successful  men,  and  their  caste  brethren 
also,  naturally  belittle  the  pretensions  of  the  superior  castes, 
and  even  scoff  at  the  presumptuous  claims  of  the  Brahmans. 
I  have  myself  known  them  to  do  so. 

Then  the  administration  of  justice  in  India  under  its 

'  Some  of  the  more  recent  religious  codes  are  very  severe  upon  Hindus 
who  cross  the  sea.  "  Caste  communion  it  is  maintained  ...  is  not  to  be 
held  with  a  person  who  has  passed  the  sea  in  a  ship,  even  though  he  may 
have  performed  penance  for  it,  and,  therefore,  connection  with  such  a  person 
in  this  Vuga  is  reprehensible." — Dr.  Wilson,  Indian  Caste,  vol.  i.  pp. 
403  and  405. 

96 


CASTE   IN  INDIA 

British  rulers,  with  its  recognition  of  the  rights  of  the 
individual  irrespective  of  his  caste  or  creed,  may  tend 
to  weaken  the  caste  sentiment  by  awakening  aspirations 
amongst  the  inferior  castes. 

In  the  Eoman  Empire  the  law  "  did  much  negatively  to 
break  down  the  walls  of  separation  between  Greek  and 
Barbarian,  Jew  and  Gentile,  patrician  and  plebeian,  master 
and  slave."  ^  And  there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the 
pretensions  of  the  superior  castes  will  under  the  present 
regime  be  more  and  more  discredited,  and  the  artificial 
barriers  between  caste  and  caste  get  gradually  demolished. 
Thus  indirectly  and  unintentionally,  but  none  the  less 
surely,  does  British  rule  in  India,  by  its  discouragement  of 
the  caste  system,  foster  the  growth  of  the  national  sentiment 
amongst  the  people. 

Under  the  influence  of  the  many  causes  I  have  alluded 
to,  and  no  doubt  many  others  which  are  less  obvious,  there 
has  become  apparent  within  the  past  twenty  or  thirty  years 
a  marked  disesteem  of  the  rigid  caste  system  in  India,  at 
any  rate  in  the  ordinary  talk  of  many  educated  Hindus, 
Contempt  for  an  old-world  system  is  too  often  in  itself 
an  indu'ect  claim  to  enlightenment  and  emancipation  from 
ignorant  prejudices ;  but,  before  allowing  credit  in  this  case 
for  such  enlightenment,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the 
contemners  of  the  old  system  are  frequently  men  of  quite 
inferior  caste,  outside  the  pale  of  the  twice-borns,  and  that 
there  may  possibly  be  some  measure  of  truth  in  the  state- 
ment made  by  Mr.  Shoshee  Chunder  Dutt  that  a  "  love  of 
food  and  drink  proscribed  by  the  Shastras  and  a  morbid 
craving  for  promiscuous  intercom*se  with  females  of  all 
orders,"  are  mainly  responsible  for  the  hostility  to  the 
caste  system  prevailing  at  the  present  time. 

If  we  regard  the  caste  system  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  still  influential  Brahmans,  it  is  evident  that  with 
individual  exceptions  they  will  very  naturally  cHng  all  the 
more,  with  outraged  pride,  to  the  hereditary  importance 
derivable  from  their  dominant  and  enviable  place  in  that 
ancient  time-honoured  institution  of  their  native  land, 
and    the    end    of    the    contest    between    the    old    forces 

^  Caird,  The  Evolution  of  Eeligion,  vol.  i.  p.  1 5. 

G  97     ' 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

and    the    new   is     not    yet,    and     certainly    not    within 
sight. 

But  though  the  system  may  not  be  obsolescent,  it  is, 
as  I  have  explained,  being  assailed  at  the  present  time  by 
so  many  disintegrating  forces,  that  changes  are  inevitable, 
and,  in  my  opinion,  many  concessions  for  facilitating  social 
intercourse  between  the  different  castes  and  even  between 
Hindus  and  non-Hindus  may  be  looked  for,  even  in  the  near 
future ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  recognised  time-honoured 
limitations  with  respect  to  the  sphere  within  which  marriage 
may  be  contracted — that  most  essential  feature  of  Indian 
caste — will,  I  think,  be  more  enduring  and  prove,  for  a  long 
time  to  come,  almost  unassailable  by  either  progressives  or 
reformers. 


98 


TMEIISM  ^ 
in   BENGAL* 

/ ^ 


!]5RAMMO»MArt[7TR-CAlCUTTA 

99 


'J 


CHAPTER   III 

THEISM  IN 
BENGAL 

-Section  I. — Ram 
Mohan  Roy,  the 
Bengali  Theistic 
Reformer — His  life 
and  work. 

'ROM  the  long 
and  often  em- 
bittered conflict 
of  world-religions 
in  India,  many 
diYei"se  sects  have 
arisen,  especially 
out  of  Hinduism. 
Vigorously  as- 
sailed as  that 
ancient  faith  has 
been  for  centuries 
by  the  forces  of 
Islam  and  Chris- 
tianity, represent- 
ing in  both  cases 
the  religions  of 
powerful  domin- 
ant nationalities, 
it  has  responded 
to  the  aggressive 
forces  confronting 
it  by  repeated 
outbursts  of 
religious  enthusi- 
asm    within     its 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

own    borders,  conducted    by    Hindu   reformers    of    many 
types. 

Of  the  sects  which  this  war  of  creeds  has  called  into 
being  in  the  fertile  religious  soil  of  Hindu  India,  the  Brahma 
Samaj  (written  also  Brahmo  Samaj  and  Brahmo  Somaj)  is 
one  which  will  repay  study,  for  its  history  reveals  the 
influence  of  both  Islam  and  Christianity,  and  its  develop- 
ment the  salient  mental  and  moral  characteristics  of  the 
keen-witted,  highly  emotional  Mongolo-Dravidian  stock  to 
which  the  Bengali  race  belongs.  Indeed,  the  Brahma  or 
Brahmo  movement  displays  in  a  high  degree  the  preponder- 
ating influence  of  racial  psychology  on  national  faiths,  and 
is  for  this,  as  well  as  other  reasons,  deserving  of  the  atten- 
tion of  thoughtful  men. 

At  the  present  time  the  Brahma  sect,  consisting  of  three 
distinct  sections,  is  a  purely  theistic  one,  without  any  sacred 
book  to  appeal  to  and  without  any  miraculous  legend  as 
evidence  of  the  truth  of  its  faith,  or  of  the  doctrines  it 
professes.  But  it  was  not  always  so.  During  the  seventy- 
five  years  of  its  existence  the  sect  has  gradually  undergone 
a  progressive  development,  passing  from  a  purified  form  of 
Hinduism  to  its  present  independent  position.  In  the  year 
1774,  while  Warren  Hastings  was  still  pursuing  his  am- 
bitious projects  of  empire  in  India,  Earn  Mohun  Boy,  the 
original  founder  of  the  sect,  was  born  in  the  quiet  little 
village  of  Eadhanagar,  in  Bengal,  some  fifty  miles  from 
Calcutta.^  His  parents  were  high  caste,  and  thoroughly 
orthodox  Brahmans  in  easy  circumstances.  In  his  birth- 
place Earn  Mohun  received  the  ordinary  village-school 
education  of  the  day  in  his  mother  tongue,  after  which  he 
was  put  to  study  Persian,  at  that  time  the  language  of  all 
the  civil  and  criminal  courts  of  the  country.  He  also  took 
up  Arabic.  His  progress  in  all  branches  of  study  was  very 
rapid,  but  to  ensure  a  more  complete  and  thorough  mastery 
of  the  Persian  and  Arabic  languages,  the  boy  was,  at  the 
age  of  twelve  years,  sent  to  Patna  to  continue  his  education 
under  the  erudite  Moulvis  at  that  seat  of  Muhammadan 
learning.  His  studies  at  Patna  opened  up  to  the  inquiring 
mind  of  Eam  Mohun  Eoy  the  theology  and  philosophy  of 
^  G.  S.  Leonard,  History  of  the  Brahma  Samaj, 
lOO 


THEISM   IN  BENGAL 

the  Mussulmans.  The  young  student  took  advantage,  with 
passionate  eagerness,  of  every  source  of  knowledge  within 
his  reach.  He  anxiously  weighed  and  considered  the  con- 
flicting opinions  which  came  under  his  notice,  and,  while 
still  a  mere  lad,  was  powerfully  attracted  towards  the  Sufi  ^ 
philosophy  and  monotheistic  doctrines,  without,  however, 
being  led  at  any  time  to  adopt  the  Muhammadan  religion, 
against  which  he  wrote  in  later  life,  objecting  strongly  to 
the  anthropomorphic  conception  of  God  which  the  Koran 
encouraged.  To  counteract  the  tendency  of  these  studies 
his  parents  sent  him  to  Benares,  to  learn  from  orthodox 
Hindu  teachers  the  sacred  literature  of  their  Sanskrit 
ancestors.  But  Earn  Mohun  Eoy  was  already  too  strongly 
tinctured  with  monotheistic  sentiments  to  be  won  back  to 
idolatry  and  the  gross  Puranic  faith  of  his  parents.  How- 
ever, in  the  Vedanta  Philosophy  *  of  the  Hindus  he  found, 
or  thought  he  found,  a  confirmation  of  the  conclusions  he 
had  already  reached ;  and  at  the  early  age  of  sixteen  he 
wrote,  but  did  not  publish,  a  paper  against  the  idolatrous 
practices  of  Hinduism. 

The  hostile  attitude  he  had  taken  up  towards  his 
ancestral  religion,  and  the  very  decided  opinions  he  had 
formed,  made  his  position  under  the  parental  roof  anything 
but  comfortable,  and  with  the  consent  of  his  parents,  he  set 
out  on  a  course  of  travels  and  visited  many  parts  of  India. 
Most  Indian  religious  reformers  travel  extensively,  studying 
the  local  languages,  and  paying  special  attention  to  the 
religious  tenets  and  practices  of  the  people.  Earn  Mohun 
Eoy  even,  it  is  said,  adventurously  crossed  the  Himalayas 
and  visited  Tibet  to  study  the  Buddhist  religion  as 
actually  existing  in  that  country.  In  his  twentieth,  some 
say  twenty-second,  year,  he  commenced  to  learn  English, 
and  in  time  acquired  a  good  knowledge  of  that  language. 
When  about  twenty-eight  or  twenty-nine  years  of  age,  he 
published,  in  Persian,  a  book  in  which,  while  denouncing 

^  Sufi  Philosophy.  This  system,  which  is  but  a  Muslim  adaptation  of 
the  Vedanta  school  of  Hindu  philosophy  (Hughes,  Dictionary  of  Islam, 
Art.  "Sufi  ")  is  one  that  naturally  commends  itself  to  the  Indian  mind. 

*  Vedanta  Philosophy.  One  of  the  orthodox  systems  of  Hindu  philo- 
sophy, which  may  be  styled  Hindu  Pantheism. 

lOI 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

polytheism  and  idolatry,  he  also  boldly  objected  to  the 
doctrines  of  incarnation  and  revelation.  Shortly  after 
the  publication  of  this  work,  Earn  Mohim  Eoy,  in  1803, 
entered  the  service  of  the  British  Government  as  a  sub- . 
ordinate  Eevenue  official,  and  in  ten  years  "acquired  as 
much  money  as  enabled  him  to  become  a  Zemindar,^  with 
an  income  of  ten  thousand  rupees  (equivalent  in  those 
days  to  at  least  £1000)  a  year."^  How  this  money  was 
obtained  cannot  now  be  known,  but  its  acquisition  enabled 
him,  in  the  fortieth  year  of  his  age,  to  give  up  the  public 
service,  purchase  a  residence  for  himself  at  Calcutta,  and 
settle  there  in  1814.  His  easy  leisure  appears  to  have 
been  devoted  to  religious  studies,  to  discussions  and  con- 
troversies with  Hindus,  Muhammadans,  and  Christians,  and 
in  agitating  for  various  social  reforms,  for  instance  the 
abolition  of  Sati.^ 

Two  years  after  settling  in  Calcutta  he  published  in 
English  A  Translation  of  tlie  Abridgment  of  the  Vedant  or 
Resohition  of  all  the  Veds.  After  a  diligent  study  of  the 
Bible,  he  brought  out  in  1819  a  book  entitled  The  Precepts  of 
Jesus,  the  (hdde  to  Feace  and  Happiness.  Although  this 
work  was  eminently  appreciative  of  the  character  and 
teaching  of  Christ,  it  gave  rise  to  an  attack  from  the 
missionaries  of  Serampore,  and  a  controversy  followed,  in 
the  course  of  which  Ram  Mohun  Eoy  studied  Greek  and 
Hebrew,  the  better  to  stand  his  ground  against  his  assailants. 
Strange  to  say,  he  so  far  converted  his  tutor  Mr.  Adam 
(himself  a  missionary)  to  his  own  way  of  thinking,  that  that 
gentleman  relinquished  his  spiritual  office,  became  editor  of 
the  Indian  Gazette,  and  was  generally  known  in  Calcutta  as 
"  the  second  fallen  Adam."  * 

This  occurred  in  1828.     Eam  Mohun's  controversy  with 

'  Landed  proprietor. 

^  A  History  of  the  Brahma  Samaj,  by  G.  S.  Leonard,  p.  20. 

3  Whatever  credit  may  be  due  to  Eam  Mohun  Koy  for  his  efforts  to  have 
the  rite  of  Sati  abolished,  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  his  crusade  against 
this  cruel  practice  he  could  count  upon  the  moral  support  of  every  English- 
man in  India,  and  that  the  matter  had  been  officially  considered  by  the 
Marquis  of  Wellesley  in  1807.  (See  Dr.  George' Smith,  Life  of  William 
Carey,  pp.  279-285.) 

*  Dr.  George  Smith,  Life  of  Dr.  Alexander  Ihif,  vol.  i.  p.  118. 

I02 


THEISM   IN   BENGAL 

the  advocates  of  Christianity  has  its  own  peculiar  features. 
Unable  to  deny  the  shortcomings  of  Hinduism,  as  based 
upon  the  modern  text-books  of  that  faith,  he  took  refuge  in 
the  mysterious  Vedas,  works  venerable  by  their  antiquity, 
and  as  yet  jealously  guarded  from  the  contamination  of 
European  eye  or  hand;  but  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
the  Hindu  controversialist  was  himself  but  little,  if  at  all, 
acquainted  with  these  writings  of  a  very  remote  past.  On 
this  point  we  have  the  opinion  of  Professor  Max  Miiller, 
who  says : 

"  Now  it  may  sound  strange,  but  I  feel  convinced  that 
Eam  Mohun  Koy  himself,  when,  in  his  controversies 
with  his  English  friends,  he  fortified  himself  behind  the 
rampart  of  the  Veda,  had  no  idea  of  what  the  Veda 
really  was." 

And  again : 

"  When  Eam  Mohun  Koy  speaks  of  the  Vedas,  and 
of  the  Monotheism  taught  by  them,  he  almost  invari- 
ably means  the  Upanishads  not  the  Brahmanas,  not  the 
mantras  or  hymns  of  the  Veda.  Both  the  Brahmanas 
and  the  hymns  teach  a  polytheistic,  or,  more  accurately, 
a  henotheistic,  but  not  a  monotheistic  religion;  yet 
they  form  the  great  bulk  of  what  is  called  Veda,  while 
the  Upanishads  form  only  a  kind  of  appendix."  ^ 

Such  tactics,  although  unfortunately  too  common 
amongst  polemical  writers,  can  only  by  a  misuse  of  language 
be  held  to  consist  with  an  honest  seeking  after  truth. 

The  fourteen  years  that  had  elapsed  since  Eam  Mohun 
Eoy  settled  in  Calcutta,  had  been  fruitful  in  events  calculated 
to  produce  a  lasting  impression  on  the  ideas  of  the  people 
of  India.  Not  the  least  of  these  was  the  establishment  of 
the  Hindu  College,  in  January  1817.  Much  good  work  had 
been  done  in  that  institution  in  bringing  the  native  mind 
into  contact  with  the  treasures  of  European  literature; 
but  very  stirring  times  in  the  intellectual  world  of  native 
society  in  Calcutta  were  at  hand.  In  March  1828,  Mr. 
H.  L.  V.  Derozio  joined  the  teaching  staff  of  the  Hindu 
College,  and  under  the  bold  guidance  of  this  youthful 
Eurasian  professor,  a  man  of  some  genius,  and  a  free-thinker, 

^  Professor  Max  Miiller,  Biographical  Essays — "  Ram  Mohun  Roy." 

103 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

an  enthusiasm  of  inquiry  had  been  raised  which  has 
seldom  been  equalled.  Keen  and  eager  students  flocked 
round  the  young  master,  and  unsatisfied  with  the  ordinary 
hours  of  study,  and  the  instruction  of  the  classroom, 
followed  him  to  his  home,  there  to  renew  the  discussions, 
and  to  probe  to  their  depths  the  most  cherished  dogmas  of 
philosophy  and  religion.^ 

The  natural  result  of  these  full  and  free  inquiries, 
conducted  no  doubt  with  more  zeal  than  judgment,  was  a 
widespread  scepticism  amongst  the  Hindu  students,  who 
carried  their  new  ideas  into  the  family  circle.  "The 
convulsion,"  says  a  Bengali  writer,  "  caused  by  Derozio  was 
great.  It  pervaded  almost  the  house  of  every  advanced 
student.  Down  with  Hinduism !  Dowm  with  orthodoxy ! 
was  the  cry  everywhere."  ^ 

This  open  and  aggressive  scepticism  of  the  rising 
generation  created  a  panic  in  the  heart  of  orthodox  Hindu 
society,  which  rose  up  against  the  new  ideas,  and  suc- 
ceeded eventually  in  getting  Derozio  removed  from  his 
place  in  the  College.  But  an  important  work  had  already 
been  accomplished.  The  vast  region  of  European  specula- 
tion in  metaphysics  and  ethics  had  been  opened  out  to 
the  Calcutta  students  by  Derozio  in  a  manner  which  probably 
no  other  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  an  Indian  College 
would  have  done,  and  a  shock  was  given  to  Hinduism  in 
Bengal,  the  effects  of  which  were  apparent  on  all  sides. 

Profiting  by  the  disintegrating  labours  of  Mr.  Derozio, 
Dr.  Alexander  Duff,  the  enthusiastic  Scotch  missionary, 
made  a  vigorous,  well-timed  effort  at  proselytising.  Offering, 
with  persuasive  eloquence,  to  the  young  sceptics  of  the 
Hindu  College  a  refuge  from  their  doubts  in  the  bosom  of 
Christianity,  he  succeeded  in  attracting  into  the  Christian 
fold  a  few  of  those  to  whom  the  condition  of  doubt  was 
intolerable,  or  who  had  already  irretrievably  compromised 
themselves,  and  been  expelled  from  Hindu  society.^ 

^  Mr.  Derozio's  connection  with  the  Hindu  College  lasted  from  March 
1828  to  April  1831. 

'^  Peary  Chand  Mittra,  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  David  Hare, 
p.  16. 

^  Between  August  1832  and  April  1833,  Duff  made  four  converts  to 
Christianity. 

104 


THEISM  IN  BENGAL 

At  this  time  also  the  great  political  questions  which 
arose  out  of  the  storm  of  discussions  and  controversies  on 
the  Eeform  Bill  began  to  teach  the  mild  Hindu  the  "  rights 
of  man."  This  awakening  of  the  Eastern  mind,  under  the 
stimulating  influence  of  occidental  ideas,  marks  an  epoch  in 
the  intellectual  history  of  India,  a  renaissance  destined  to 
lead  to  the  most  important  consequences,  of  which  as  yet 
only  the  beginnings  are  apparent. 

During  the  period  of  speculative  fermentation  of  which 
we  have  been  writing,  Eam  Mohun  Eoy,  assisted  by  a  few 
friends  and  disciples,  founded  the  Brahma  Samaj  or  Society 
of  God.  A  suitable  house  of  prayer  was  opened  in  1830, 
designed  for  congregational  worship,  itself  an  important 
innovation  upon  Hindu  customs  in  religion.  The  service 
in  the  new  theistic  church  consisted  in  the  recital  of  the 
Vedas  by  two  Telegu  Brahmans,^  the  reading  of  texts  from 
the  Upanishads,  and  the  expounding  of  the  same  in 
Bengali.  The  Samaj,  thus  constituted,  looked  for  its 
sanctions  to  certain  Hindu  Scriptures  of  great  antiquity 
and  acknowledged  authority,  and  it  was  at  this  tune 
practically,  although  an  unorthodox,  still  a  Hindu  sect,  true 
to  the  all-important  institution  of  caste.  Indeed,  in 
establishing  this  sect  Eam  Mohun  Eoy  professed  to  be 
leading  his  countrymen  back  to  the  pure,  uncorrupted 
monotheistic  religion  of  their  Vedic  ancestors;  but  his 
monotheism,  based  as  it  was  essentially  upon  the  Vedanta 
philosophy,  was  in  reality  but  a  disguised  Pantheism, 
enriched  as  regards  its  ethics  by  ideas  derived  from  Muslim 
and  Christian  literature  and  theology. 

At  about  this  period  the  French  travelling  naturalist, 
M.  Victor  Jacquemont,  made  the  acquaintance  of  Eam 
Mohun  Eoy  at  Calcutta,  and  he  devotes  several  pages  of 
his  book  of  travels  in  India  to  an  appreciative  account  of 
the  reformer's  history,  acquirements,  and  character.  As 
M.  Jacquemont  was  received  on  intimate  terms  into  the 
very  best  Anglo-Indian  society,  his  opinions  naturally 
reflect  the  opinions  of  his  hosts,  and  are  strong  evidence  of 

^  Telegu  or  Madras!  Brahmans  were  employed  because  there  are  no 
pure  Brahmans  in  Bengal  to  whom  the  sacred  task  could  properly  be 
entrusted. 

105 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

the  high  esteem  in  which  Earn  Mohim  Eoy  was  held  by 
his  English  contemporaries  in  India.  With  regard  to  his 
private  life,  our  French  traveller  says  that  he  dispensed  in 
charities  the  whole  of  the  fortune  which  he  had  inherited 
from  his  father,  living  himself  with  the  strictest  economy 
in  order  that  he  might  have  the  more  to  give  away.^ 

On  the  other  hand,  the  impression  produced  on  the 
famous  French  missionary,  the  Abbe  J.  A.  Dubois,  by  Eam 
Mohun  Eoy  was  not  at  all  favourable.  He  formed  no  high 
opinion  either  of  his  learning  or  his  originality,  considered 
that  the  reformer's  talents  were  much  overrated,  and  derided 
his  efforts  to  bring  back  his  countrymen  to  the  religion  of 
their  ancestors.  Especially  objectionable  did  Eam  Mohun 
Eoy  appear  to  M.  Dubois  when,  at  an  entertainment  given 
by  the  reformer  to  the  Spaniards  living  in  Calcutta,  he 
made  an  elaborate  speech,  with  reference  to  the  recent 
revolution  in  Spain,  on  the  advantages  of  religious  and 
political  freedom.  "  In  fact,"  says  the  French  missionary, 
"to  see  a  Brahmin  decorated  with  the  treble  cord,  that 
indubitable  badge  of  the  most  oppressive  and  most 
degrading  despotism,  turn  the  apostle  of  freedom,  is  so 
shocking  an  anomaly,  that  persons  acquainted  with  the 
subject  will  find  it  difficult  to  reconcile  themselves  to  such 
a  contradiction."  ^  But  this  harsh  and  not  quite  reasonable 
criticism  on  the  part  of  the  good  Abbe — usually  so  very 
fair  minded  —  may  well  be  attributed  to  the  odium 
theologicum  aroused  in  the  militant  French  hierophant 
by  the  sight  of  a  hated  priestly  opponent  commanding 
public  attention  and  receiving,  as  in  this  case,  respectful 
hearing  even  from  Europeans. 

In  1830  the  titular  Emperor  of  Delhi,  himself  a  Muslim, 
conferred  the  title  of  Rajah  upon  the  Bengali  reformer,  and 
induced  him  to  proceed  to  England  on  a  mission  to  the 
Home  Government,  deeming,  in  all  probability,  that  the 
high  estimation  in  which  Eam  Mohun  Eoy  was  held  by 
Anglo-Indians  marked  him  out  as  the  fittest  advocate  of 
his  cause  in  England. 

Of   distinguished  appearance,   agreeable   manners,   and 

^  Victor  Jacqiiemont,  Voyage  daiis  I'Inde,  tomo  premier,  pp.  183-188. 
^  Letters  on  the  State  of  Christianity  in  India,  pp.  165,  166. 

io6 


THEISM   IN   BENGAL 

undoubtedly  great  ability,  the  envoy  from  the  Mogul  court, 
"  the  first  Brahman  who  had  ever  crossed  the  sea,"  ^  was 
everywhere  warmly  welcomed  in  England,  and  the  more 
cordially,  perhaps,  because,  from  his  professed  admiration  of 
Christ  and  His  teaching,  it  was  felt  that  he  was  one  ahnost 
persuaded  to  become  a  Christian.  But  Earn  Alohun  Eoy, 
who  has  been  described  by  Professor  Sir  Monier  Williams 
"  as  the  first  earnest-minded  investigator  of  the  science  of 
comparative  religion  that  the  world  has  produced,"  ^  had 
done  more  than  look  into  the  various  religions  which 
claim  the  allegiance  and  sustain  the  hopes  of  men,  and 
was  by  no  means  a  likely  convert. 

It  is  one  thing  to  avow  admiration  of  the  exalted 
character  and  teaching  of  Christ,  it  is  quite  another  thing 
to  subscribe  to  the  dogmas  of  a  particular  Christian  Church, 
undergo  baptism  in  order  to  he  received  therein,  formally 
renounce  one's  old  faith,  and  incur  all  the-  social  penalties 
of  apostasy.  And  this  unqualified  acceptance  of  specific 
dogmas,  together  with  the  public  and  complete  repudiation 
of  one's  national  religion,  is  what  the  conversion  of  a  Hindu 
or  a  Muslim  to  Christianity  actually  involves. 

Without  questioning  for  a  moment  the  genuineness 
and  sincerity  of  the  estimation  in  which  the  Bengali 
reformer  might  hold  the  pure  and  elevated  teaching  of 
Christ,  it  is  probable  that  in  their  eager  desire  to  regard 
him  as  a  Christian  in  all  but  open  profession  of  faith,  his 
kind  hosts  attached  more  importance  to  his  words  than 
they  really  deserved.  Be  this  as  it  may,  Eam  Mohun  Eoy 
never  embraced  the  Christian  religion,  but  died  in  England 
in  1833,  a  Hindu  to   the   last,  clinging  tenaciously  to  all 

^  "The  immense  difficulty  of  the  enterprise  at  that  period  is  proved  by 
the  fact  that  we  do  not  hear  of  any  other  Hindoo  of  high  caste  visiting  this 
country  since  the  death  of  Ram  Mohun  Roy  until  in  1841  or  1842  his  friend 
Dwarkanath  Tagore  came  to  England,  and  in  1845  four  native  Indian 
medical  sttidents,  accompanied  hither  Dr.  Henry  Goodeve,  the  founder  of 
the  Medical  College  in  Calcutta." — Mary  Carpenter,  The  Last  Days  in 
England  of  the  Rajah  Ram  Mohun  Roy,  p.  67. 

Needless  to  add  that  hundreds  of  Indians  are  now  studying  in  Britain, 
and  that  many  thousands  of  Indians  of  all  ranks,  castes,  and  creeds  have 
visited  England  within  the  last  seventy  years. 

^  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  January  1881.  Art.  "  Indian 
Theistic  Reforms." 

107 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

the  observances  and  restrictions  of  his  caste.  The  Eajah 
was  buried  in  Bristol,  and  a  monument  erected  by  his 
friend  and  disciple  Dwarkanath  Tagore  marks  his  last 
resting-place  in  Arno's  Vale  Cemetery. 

Eam  Mohun  Eoy  was  a  keen-witted  man  of  high 
capacity,  whose  studies  had  satisfied  him  that  the  orthodox 
Hindu  system  was  not  without  defects.  In  this  he  was 
not  singular.  Eeformers  like  Kabir  and  Nanak  had  lived 
and  taught  before  his  days,  but  Eam  Mohun  Eoy's  work  was 
done  in  the  broad  light  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  much 
of  it  in  such  a  fashion  as  to  attract  the  attention,  sympathy, 
and  countenance  of  Europeans.  Throughout  his  career, 
though  at  one  time  subjected  to  much  social  persecution, 
the  reformer  seems  to  have  managed  to  steer  a  safe  and 
tolerably  comfortable  course.  Although  he  had  written 
against  Muhammadanism,  he  was  selected  as  the  envoy  of 
the  Mogul  Emperor  to  England;  although  he  carried  on 
a  controversy  with  the  Serampore  missionaries,  he  seems 
to  have  won  the  confidence  of  Christians,  for  we  learn  that 
the  first  person  the  Scotch  missionary  Alexander  Duff  was, 
on  his  arrival  at  Calcutta,  advised  to  consult  about  his 
mission,  was  no  other  than  Eam  Mohun  Eoy;  while  by 
his  strict  adherence  to  caste  rules,  and  the  obligatory 
ceremonies  of  Hinduism,  he  fully  maintained  his  claim  to 
be  regarded  as  a  Hindu  to  the  end  of  his  life.  In  all 
things  he  was  a  shrewd  man  of  the  world.  His  clear 
intellect  could  see  that  reforms  were  urgently  called  for 
in  the  Hindu  religion  and  society,  and  he  worked  towards 
the  desired  end,  without  exposing  himself  to  very  serious 
risks  or  inconvenience.  He  took  a  prominent  part  in 
agitating  for  the  suppression  of  Sati,  and  strongly  advocated 
a  practical  scientific  education  for  his  countrymen,  instead 
of  the  traditional  Sanskrit  learning,  which  he,  in  the  fulness 
of  knowledge,  held  in  no  great  esteem.^  On  the  whole, 
Eam  Mohun  Eoy  was  a  man  of  conspicuous  ability  and 
much  tact,  with  a  rare  liberality  of  sentiment  and  a 
practical  turn  of  mind.  As  the  first  Indian  reformer 
whose  writings  reflect  the  Christian  influence  introduced 
from  the  West,  he  has  naturally  been  dealt  with  in  a  kindly 
'  Peary  Chand  Mittra,  Biography  of  David  Hare. 

io8 


THEISM   IN   BENGAL 

and  appreciative  spirit  by  European  writers,  and  has 
perhaps  been  exalted  by  some  of  them  into  a  position 
beyond  his  deserts.  In  estimating  the  originality  and 
liberality  of  his  views,  it  has  to  be  borne  in  mind  that 
some  of  his  proposed  social  reforms,  for  example  the  pre- 
vention of  Sati,  were  probably  suggested  by  his  European 
friends  in  high  position,  and  that  his  religious  views  may 
have  owed  their  catholicity  to  the  genius  of  Hinduism, 
strengthened  perhaps  by  his  familiarity  with  the  ideas  of 
the  French  and  English  sceptics  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  their  successors. 


109 


THEISM  IN  BE'NGAL— continued 

Section  II. — Debendra  Nath  Tagore  and  the  Adi  Brahma  Samaj  — 
The  first  important  schism  led  by  Keshub  Chimder  Sen. 

AM  MOHUN  EOY  died  in  debt,  and  after  his 
demise  the  Brahma  Samaj  languished,  its  money 
capital  amounting  to  only  six  thousand  and 
eighty  rupees. 

This  amount  was  clearly  inadequate  to  the 
support  of  the  institution,  and  it  owed  to  the 
liberality  of  a  single  man,  Dwarkanath  Tagore,  the  pay- 
ment of  its  very  moderate  monthly  expenses  of  some 
eighty  rupees.  By  1841,  after  an  existence  of  eleven 
years,  the  Brahma  Society  could  not  count  more  than  five 
or  six  persons  who  cared  to  attend  the  religious  services 
at  the  Mandir  (place  of  worship),  and  there  was  but  one 
regular  attendant,  a  relative  of  the  gentleman  by  whom 
the  place  was  kept  up.  In  this  moribund  condition, 
the  Samaj  was  taken  in  hand  by  Debendra  Nath  Tagore, 
a  son  of  Dwarkanath,  and  by  his  devotion,  energy,  and 
ability,  some  new  life  was  infused  into  the  almost  ex- 
tinct Society.  In  1843,  Debendra  Nath  instituted  a  form 
of  initiation  into  the  Society  which  involved  the  signing 
of  a  covenant  by  the  initiate,  affirming  his  adoption  of 
the  Vedantic  faith,  and  renunciation  of  idolatry.  At 
that  time  the  Samaj  could  number  only  eighty-three 
members.  By  Debendra  Nath's  zeal,  branches  were  estab- 
lished in  many  of  the  towns  and  villages  of  Bengal. 
Up  to  this  time  the  Brahma  Samaj  professed  to  derive 
its  doctrines,  and  to  rely  for  its  sanctions  upon  the 
Vedas.  But,  as  subsequent  events  proved,  a  pure  theistic 
church  could  not  be   firmly  built   upon  such  foundations. 

no 


THEISM   IN  BENGAL 

Opposition  and  criticism  awakened  honest  inquiry  and 
investigation.  Four  learned  Pandits  were  sent  in  1845  to 
Benares  at  Debendra  Nath's  expense,  to  copy  out  and  make 
a  special  study  of  the  Vedas.  After  two  years  they  re- 
turned to  Calcutta,  Debendra  Nath  devoted  himself,  with 
their  aid,  to  a  diligent  and  critical  examination  of  the 
sacred  books,  and  eventually,  after  much  controversy,  and 
even  danger  of  disruption,  the  Samaj  came,  under  his 
guidance,  to  the  important  decision  that  the  teaching  of 
the  Vedas  could  not  be  reconciled  with  the  conclusions  of 
modern  science,  or  with  the  religious  convictions  of  the 
Brahmas,^  a  result  which  soon  led  to  an  open  and  public 
denial  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Vedas.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  Brahmic  movement  more  creditable  to  the  parties 
concerned  than  this  honest  and  careful  inquiry  into  the 
nature  of  the  doctrines  and  precepts  of  the  Vedas. 

The  conclusion  arrived  at  was  a  momentous  one  in  the 
history  of  the  Society,  for  at  a  later  period  it  led,  and 
necessarily  so,  to  a  complete  and  uncompromising  rupture 
with  Hinduism  on  the  part  of  all  those  who  were  prepared 
to  follow  to  their  logical  consequences  the  principles  which 
they  publicly  professed.  The  sect  now  fell  back  upon 
Natural  Religion,  but,  needing  some  sort  of  text-book 
explanatory  of  their  creed  and  practices,  one  was  com- 
piled in  1848  by  Debendra  Nath  himself,  entitled  Brahma 
Dharma  Ghrantha,  a  collection  "of  Theistic  Texts  con- 
taining selections  from  the  Shastras  and  the  Shastras 
only " ;  that  is  from  such  of  the  old  oracles  of  the  Hindu 
faith  as  the  Upanishads,  Manu,  the  Mahabharata,  and  the 
like.  A  Bengali  translation  of  the  selected  texts,  and  a 
commentary  thereon,  formed  an  essential  part  of  this  book. 
Having  given  up  the  infallibility  of  even  the  most  sacred 
of  all  the  Hindu  Scriptures,  the  Vedas,  it  is  clear  that  a 
few  passages  culled  from  later  sacred  books  of  the  Hindus, 
in  support  of  a  particular  doctrine,  could  not  be,  in  any 
sense,  authoritative ;  but  the  leaders  of  the  Society  appear 
to  have  held  that  its  theism,  though  founded  on  intuition 
and  reason,  was  still  in  consonance  with  the  highest  teach- 

^  Pandit  Sivanath  Sastri,  M.A.,   The  New  Dispensation,  p.  6.      T.  E. 
Slater,  Keshdb  Chandra  Sen,  p.  36. 

Ill" 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

ings  of  Hinduism,  and  they  desired  to  emphasise  this 
opinion,  and  keep  it  before  the  minds  of  their  country- 
men. 

At  this  time  the  creed  of  the  Brahmas  was  embodied  in 
the  following  four  articles : — 

"(1)  One  only  God  before  this  was,  and  nothing 
else  was  co-existent  with  him.  He  has  created  what- 
ever there  exists. 

"  (2)  He  is  eternal,  intelligence  itself,  infinite,  all- 
good,  ail-apart,  without  parts,  one,  without  a  second, 
all-pervading,  governing  and  supporting  everything, 
omniscient,  omnipotent,  perfect,  immutable,  without  a 
likeness. 

"(3)  His  worship  alone  ensures  all  present  and 
future  bliss. 

"  (4)  Love  of  him,  and  doing  the  works  he  loves,  is 
his  worship."  ^ 

Here  I  may  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  these 
articles  of  faith,  no  reference  is  made  to  the  doctrines  of 
successive  reincarnations  and  of  Karma,  so  characteristic  of 
Hinduism  in  its  subtler  aspects. 

Henceforward  the  apostles  of  the  Brahma  Samaj  openly 
taught  that  they  had  no  written  scriptures,  but  based  the 
doctrines  of  their  faith  upon  the  laws  of  nature,  and  the 
primitive  convictions  implanted  in  the  mind  of  man. 

With  all  their  outward  profession  of  austere  mono- 
theistic doctrines,  it  appears  that,  at  this  time,  the  Brahmas 
in  their  domestic  life  differed  little,  if  at  all,  from  their 
idolatrous  countrymen. 

To  avow  a  theoretical  belief  in  the  unity  of  God,  and 
to  pass  a  sweeping  condemnation  upon  idolatry  of  every 
kind,  was  far  easier  than  to  avoid  participating  in  idolatrous 
practices,  interwoven  as  these  were  with  every  ceremony 
and  detail  of  public  and  private  life.  It  was  clear  that  if 
the  new  ideas  were  really  to  bear  fruit,  vigorous  action  was 
necessary  in  lieu  of  dreamy  speculation.  Zealous  young 
reformers  desired  the  total  suppression  of  all  idolatrous 
rites.  To  reconcile  their  conduct  with  their  creed  in  the 
matter  of  religious  ceremonies,  without  unnecessary  innova- 
^  G.  S.  Leonard,  A  History  of  the  Brahma  Samaj,  p.  91. 
112 


THEISM   IN  BENGAL 

tion,  was  a  delicate  matter,  but  had  to  be  attempted  if  the 
sect  was  not  to  become  a  byword.  Under  the  stimulus  of 
pressing  necessity,  rules  for  the  conduct  of  all  the  principal 
ceremonies  were  at  length  drawn  up  for  the  guidance  of 
Brahmas,  retaining  as  much  as  possible  of  the  time- 
honoured  usages  and  practices  of  Hinduism,  and  Debendra 
Nath  himseM  was  the  first  to  set  the  example  of  performing 
a  Hindu  rite  without  any  proceedings  savouring  of  idolatry. 
But  these  concessions  were  not  sufficient  for  the  extreme 
radical  party  in  the  new  sect.  The  more  conservative 
members  still  clung  to  Hinduism,  and  regarded  themselves 
as  Hindu  reformers,  while  the  progressive  Brahmas,  as  they 
styled  themselves,  were  minded  to  go  a  good  deal  further. 
That  party  was  prepared  to  break  altogether  with  Hinduism. 
It  was  determined  to  abolish  the  use  of  sect  marks,  to  allow 
marriage  between  members  of  different  castes,  and  it  was 
ready  to  welcome  into  its  ranks  converts  from  every  caste 
and  creed.  The  conservatives  were  led  by  Debendra  Nath 
Tagore,  a  man  learned  in  the  Shastras  and  Sanskrit  litera- 
ture, averse  to  Christianity,  and  deeply  tinctured  with  the 
Sufi-ism  of  the  Persians. 

The  radicals  were  headed  by  a  young  man  of  the  Vaidya 
caste,  named  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  who  had  joined  the 
Samaj  in  1859  and  been  appointed  a  minister  by  Debendra 
Nath  Tagore  in  1862.  Educated  in  the  Presidency  College 
at  Calcutta,  more  familiar  with  English  and  the  Bible  than 
with  the  Sanskrit  language  and  Vedic  literature,  he  was 
filled  with  deep  enthusiastic  admiration  of  the  beauty  of 
Christ's  character  and  teaching.  A  schism  in  the  Society 
was  an  unavoidable  consequence  of  these  differences  of 
opinion.  Under  the  energetic  leadership  of  Babu  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen,  the  progressive  party  seceded  from  the  original 
Society,  and  set  up  a  Samaj  of  their  own,  which  was  publicly 
established  in  November  1866. 

With  the  secession  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  and  his 
followers  a  complete  and  permanent  separation  was  effected 
between  the  conservative  and  progressive  parties  in  the 
Samaj,  which  owed  its  origin  to  Eam  Mohun  Eoy.  Each 
went  its  own  way,  the  former  being  henceforth  known  as 
the  Adi  (original)  Brahma  Samaj,  while  the  latter  assumed 

H  113 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND    MUSLIMS   OF  INDIA 

the  somewhat  pretentious  title  of  "  the  Brahma  Samaj  of 
India." 

Before  dealing  with  Keshub's  very  conspicuous  and 
somewhat  erratic  career,  I  may  devote  a  couple  of  pages 
to  the  interesting,  though  uneventful,  story  of  the  Adi 
Samaj. 

Under  the  guidance  of  its  founder  Debendra  Nath 
Tagore,  who  was  born  in  1818  and  died  so  recently  as 
January  1905,  the  Adi  Brahma  Samaj  has  continued  to 
uphold  theism  as  a  cult  in  harmony  with  the  national 
religion.  It  professes  indeed  to  be  a  Hindu  sect  whose 
special  mission  is  to  abolish  idolatry  and  propagate  theism. 
To  the  Hindu  caste  system  the  Adi  Samaj  maintains  an 
attitude  of  toleration,  trusting  that  reforms  in  respect  to 
this  matter  will,  in  course  of  time,  follow  the  full  acceptance 
of  its  fundamental  principles.  Debendra  Nath — who  has 
been  succeeded  as  chief  minister  of  the  sect  by  his  eldest 
son  Babu  Dwijindra  Nath  Tagore — was  a  man  of  great 
ability,  a  fine  orator,  a  careful  man  of  business,  a  wise 
father,  a  man  of  scrupulous  integrity ,i  and  eminently 
religious  from  quite  youthful  days.  In  his  old  age  Debendra 
Nath  Tagore  led  the  life  of  a  recluse.  To  a  spot,  situated 
about  a  mile  from  the  Bolpur  station  of  the  East  Indian 
Railway,  now  known  as  the  shantiniketan  of  Bolpur, 
Debendra  Nath  was  wont  to  retreat  in  order  to  hold  com- 
munion with  God,  in  other  words  to  practise  Yoga.  He 
used  to  pitch  a  tent  there  and  give  himself  up  to  religious 
meditation  in  the  shade  of  a  particular  tree.  Eventually 
he  secured  about  six  and  a  half  acres  of  land,  built  a  dwelling- 
house  on  it,  and,  later  on,  a  chapel  and  a  Brahmavidyala  or 
school. 

"  The  sanctuary  or  chapel  is  a  marvellous  edifice," 
says  a  pious  Bengali  pilgrim.  "  The  roof  is  tiled,  but 
the  enclosure  is  of  glass,  some  of  which  are  painted 
and  some  coloured.  The  Crystal  Palace,  London,  is  a 
glass  house.  We  have  not  heard  of  any  other  house 
besides  it  made  of  glass.  Although  in  magnitude  the 
shantiniketan  sanctuary  cannot  be  compared  with  the 

1  C.  E.  Buckland,  C.I.E.,  Bengal  wider  its  Lieutenani-Govei-nors,  vol.  ii. 
pp.  1035-37. 

114 


tHEISM  IN  BENGAL 

famous  Crystal  Palace,  it  gives  the  people  some  idea 
as  to  what  sort  of  edifice  the  latter  is.  It  undoubtedly 
is  an  attraction  to  the  villagers,  who  come  to  see  it  in 
large  numbers.  This  glass  hall  is  about  60  feet  long 
and  about  30  feet  broad.  The  pavement  is  of  white 
marble.  There  are  suitable  inscriptions  in  it  in  Sanskrit. 
It  has  four  gates  from  four  sides  of  tlie  garden.  Towards 
tlie  eastern  gate,  there  is  a  beautiful  portico  with  a 
tower  over  it,  and  the  word  OM  in  Bengali,  like  the 
figure  of  the  cross  in  Christian  churches,  flourishes 
over  the  topmost  pinnacle.  Suitable  inscriptions,  both 
in  Sanskrit  and  Bengali,  are  inscribed  on  beautiful 
pedestals  for  flower  vases,  and  placed  at  the  approach 
to  the  holy  place.  There  is  a  beautiful  artificial  foun- 
tain, which  plays  on  special  occasions,  and  on  the  two 
pillars  near  it  are  stuck  two  large  pieces  of  marble,  the 
one  bearing  an  inscription  in  Sanskrit  and  the  other 
in  Bengali,  describing  the  blessedness  of  heaven — of 
which  the  place  assuredly  is  the  foreshadow."  ^ 

In  the  chapel  described  as  above  by  a  devout  Bengali 
admirer,  religious  services  are  held  regularly  twice  a  day, 
in  accordance  with  the  liturgy  of  the  Adi  Brahma  Samaj, 
by  a  Brahman  appointed  for  the  purpose.  Within  the 
precincts  of  the  shantiniketan  animal  food  is  interdicted. 
There  is  a  holy  of  holies  in  the  sanctuary,  the, spot  where 
Debendra  Nath  used  to  practise  Yoga  under  a  great  chittim 
tree.  Here  stands  a  small  elevated  seat  made  of  white 
marble — the  Vedi — upon  which,  lost  in  contemplation,  the 
minister  used  to  hold  communion  with  God.  The  Vedi  is 
deemed  so  sacred  that^  no  one  but  the  Master  has  ever 
presumed  to  occupy  it.  The  chittim  tree  at  Bolpur  is  in 
the  belief  of  Debendra  Nath's  followers  destined  to  become 
in  after  years  as  famous  as  the  Bodhi  tree  at  Buddh  Gaya, 
which  some  four-and-twenty  centuries  ago  witnessed  Gau- 
tama's great  temptation  and  his  final  triumph  over  Mara 
the  Evil  One. 

By  his  disciples  Debendra  Nath  was  styled  Maharslii — 
grand  Eishi  or  Saint — and  he  was  highly  esteemed  by  all 
classes  in  Bengal.*  The  ceremony  of  the  Cremation  of  the 
Maharshi's  body  at  the  Nimtollah  Burning  Ghat  was  the 

^  From   Unity  and   the  Minister,   13th    October  1901,   reproduced  in 
Tattwabodhini  Patrika,  toL  xv.  part  ill. 

"5 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   ANt)  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

occasion  of  an  unprecedented  display  of  sympathy  and 
respect  on  the  part  of  his  countrymen  of  all  denominations. 
Yet  the  sect  which  Debendra  Nath  Tagore  founded,  and 
practically  maintained  at  his  own  expense,  is  still  numerically 
insignificant.  According  to  information  received  by  me  in 
July  1905  from  a  Bengali  gentleman  (Babu  Jogindra  Nath 
Bose)  interested  in  the  Samaj,  the  entire  sect  numbered 
only  "  three  hundred  people,  men,  women  and  children 
all  told." 


116 


THEISM  IN  BENG Ah— continued 

Section  III. — Early  troubles  of  the  "  Brahma  Samaj  of  India" — Act 
passed  by  Goyerument  to  legalise  Brahma  marriages. 

p5JiHE  leader  of  the  progressive  party,  Babu 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  who  was  only  twenty- 
eight  years  of  age,  had  shown  a  strong  passion 
for  the  stage,  and  loved  nothing  better  than 
the  plays  of  Shakespeare.  He  was  fond  of 
performing  himself,  and  especially  delighted 
in  appearing  in  the  role  of  magician  before  his  family  and 
friends.  One  of  his  biographers  even  gives  him  the  credit 
of  having  revived  dramatic  performances  in  Bengal.^ 

At  an  early  age  he  studied  the  Bible  with  the  Eev.  T.  H. 
Burne,  domestic  chaplain  to  Bishop  Cotton,  and  imbibed 
ideas  and  feelings  which  made  a  lasting  impression  on  his 
mind.2  Although  decidedly  clever  and  self-reliant,  Keshub 
does  not  appear  to  have  made  a  figure  either  at  school  or 
college,  probably  on  account  of  his  distaste  for  mathematical 
studies,  and  his  irrepressible  individuality.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-one  he  began  life  as  a  clerk  on  a  small  salary  in  the 
Bank  of  Bengal.  Endowed  with  an  emotional  temperament, 
earnest  piety,  a  very  ambitious  spirit,  unusual  energy,  a 
gift  of  ready  speech,  and  a  strong  leaven  of  vanity,  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen  found  the  sober,  monotonous  duties  of  a  bank 
clerk  intolerable,  and  very  soon  sought  a  more  congenial 
field  for  the  exercise  of  his  abilities.  The  reform  movement 
set  on  foot  by  Eam  Mohun  Eoy  attracted  his  attention, 

'  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  printed  at  the  Vedanta 
Press,  Calcutta,  1884.  This  sketch  was  written  by  an  ardent  admirer  of 
the  reformer,  and  one  apparently  well  acquainted  with  him  and  his  family. 

*  Idem,  p.  7. 

U7. 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

and,  as  already  stated,  he  formally  joined  the  Brahma  Samaj 
in  1859.  He  was  now  in  his  proper  element,  and,  as  we 
have  seen,  became  before  long  an  acknowledged  leader  in 
the  Society. 

At  the  inaugural  meeting  of  the  new  Brahma  Samaj 
of  India,  of  which  Keshub  was  the  founder,  texts  from  the 
sacred  Scriptures  of  the  Christians,  Hindus,  Muhammadans, 
Parsees,  and  Chinese  were  publicly  read,  in  order  to  mark, 
and  to  proclaim  to  the  world,  the  catholicity  of  spirit  in 
which  the  new  sect  was  formed.  And  thus  the  Brahmas, 
although  denying  the  inspiration  of  any  of  the  writings 
held  sacred  by  the  professors  of  existing  creeds,  still  use 
them  as  a  common  storehouse  from  which  to  borrow  what- 
ever seems  most  suitable  to  point  a  moral,  to  strengthen 
an  argument,  or  to  support  a  thesis.  And  the  same  sermon 
or  lecture  may  bristle  with  quotations  from  the  Eaniayana, 
the  Koran,  and  the  Bible,  all  brought  forward  with  curious 
impartiality,  and  referred  to  with  equal  veneration. 

From  the  time  of  his  secession  from  the  parent  Society, 
Keshub  by  his  writings  and  public  lectures  kept  himself 
prominently  before  the  Indian  world,  enlisting  the  sympathies 
of  the  Viceroy,  Sir  John  Lawrence,  who  took  a  deep  interest 
in  the  work  of  the  native  reformer,  particularly  as  Keshub 
had  spoken  publicly  of  Christ  in  terms  which  seemed  to 
justify  the  beHef  that  he  was  a  Christian  in  all  but  open 
profession  of  faith. 

In  1868,  Keshub  visited  Simla  in  order  to  have  an 
interview  with  the  Viceroy,  and  there,  for  the  first  time, 
I  heard  him  deliver  to  an  appreciative*  audience  one  of  his 
popular  lectures,  displaying  much  showy  eloquence  and 
emotional  fervour. 

By  this  time  several  marriages  had  been  performed 
according  to  the  revised  ritual  of  the  Brahmic  Church. 
They  had  given  great  offence  to  orthodox  Hindus,  and  had 
exposed  the  participators  in  these  novel  rites  to  much 
obloquy.  The  legality  of  marriages  thus  contracted  had 
even  been  questioned. 

This  was  an  important  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  sect. 
Here  was  a  real  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  the  propa-« 
gation  of  Brahmaism.    If  marriages  conducted  according  to 

Ii8 


THEISM  IN   BENGAL 

the  Brahmic  ritual  were  null  and  void,  and  if  Brahmas 
could  not,  without  doing  violence  to  their  consciences  or 
public  professions,  conform  to  the  ceremonials  of  orthodox 
Hinduism,  it  was  to  be  feared  that  the  young  Church, 
apparently  making  for  Christianity,  would  be  stifled  in  its 
very  infancy.  The  State  alone  could  afford  relief  to  the 
distressed  Brahmas  in  this  serious  difficulty,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  granting  of  such  relief  would  undoubtedly 
give  offence  to  the  great  Hindu  community  as  tending  to 
facihtate  apostasy  from  their  ancient  faith. 

Fortunately  for  the  cause  of  the  Brahmas  the  ruling 
power  in  India  was  ready  to  give  encouragement  to  what 
it  considered  the  healthy  moral  and  social  development  of 
the  people.  Aware  of,  and  relying  upon,  such  sympathy, 
formal  application  was  made  to  the  Government  in  1868, 
by  the  progressive  Brahmas,  under  the  leadership  of 
Babu  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  for  an  act  legahsing  Brahma 
marriages. 

Sir  Henry  Maine  was  at  that  time  legal  member  of 
the  Viceroy's  Council,  and  speaking  in  the  Council  Chamber 
on  the  10th  of  September,  he  said  that  after  due  inquiry  he 

"  had  convinced  himself  that  the  creed  of  the  Brahmas 
lacked  stability.  The  process  by  which  the  sect  was 
formed  might  be  increasing  in  activity,  but  there 
seemed  also  to  be  a  growing  disinclination  to  accept 
any  set  of  common  tenets.  It  would  be  difficult  for 
legal  purposes  to  define  a  Brahma,  and  if  no  definitions 
were  given,  there  might  shortly  be  petitions  for  relief 
by  persons  who  were  in  the  same  legal  position  as  the 
present  applicants,  but  who  declared  that  they  could 
not  conscientiously  caU  themselves  Brahmas." 

Sir  Henry  Maine,  however,  recognised  the  case  in  point 
as  one  in  which  relief  could  not  be  withheld  by  Government, 
and  to  meet  the  difficulty  introduced  a  Bill,  which  was,  in 
fact,  a  Civil  Marriage  Bill.  The  proposed  enactment  met 
with  opposition  in  many  quarters,  and  was  modified  so  as 
to  meet  the  specific  case  of  the  Brahma  Samaj.  But  at 
this  stage  an  unexpected  difficulty  presented  itself.  The 
conservative  Brahmas  of  the  Adi  Samaj,  deeming  themselves 
Hindus,  deprecated  any  special  legislation.     To  quote  the 

119 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

words  of  Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen,  who  succeeded  Sir 
Henry  Maine  as  Legal  Member  of  the  Viceroy's  Council : 

"The  Progressive  Brahmas  have  broken  far  more 
decisively  with  Hinduism  than  the  Conservatives.  The 
object  of  the  Conservatives  is  to  pour  the  new  wine  into 
old  bottles  so  that  the  one  may  not  be  wasted,  nor  the 
other  broken.  The  Progressive  Brahmas  undertake  to 
provide  at  once  new  wine  and  new  bottles.  As  regards 
marriage,  the  difference  between  the  two  parties  appears 
to  be  this:  the  marriage  ceremonies  adopted  by  the 
Progressive  Brahmas  depart  more  widely  from  the 
Hindu  law  than  those  which  are  in  use  amongst  the 
Adi-Brahmas.  The  Adi-Brahmas  indeed  contend  that 
by  Hindu  law,  their  ceremonies,  though  irregular,  would 
be  valid.  The  Progressive  Brahmas  admit  that  by 
Hindu  law  their  marriages  would  be  void.  Moreover, 
the  Progressive  Brahmas  are  opposed  both  to  infant 
marriage  and  to  polygamy  far  more  decisively  than 
the  Conservative  party." 

Eventually  the  relief  to  Brahmas  took  the  form  of  an 
Act  providing,  to  use  Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen's  words, 

"a  form  of  marriage  to  be  celebrated  before  the 
Eegistrar  for  persons  who  did  not  profess  either  the 
Hindu,  the  Muhammadan,  the  Parsee,  the  Sikh,  the 
Jaina,  or  the  Buddhist  religion,  and  who  are  neither 
Christians  nor  Jews." 

This  Act  received  the  sanction  of  the  Legislature  on  the 
19th  of  March  1872. 

The  effect  of  such  legislation  as  the  above  is,  in  the 
opinion  of  Sir  Alfred  Lyall,  following  Sir  H.  S.  Maine,  to 
arrest  the  process  of  constant  change  which  has  been  going 
on  in  Hindu  social  and  religious  life  since  the  earliest  times.^ 
In  other  words,  the  tendency  of  British  Indian  law  is  to 
destroy  the  remarkable  elasticity  of  the  Hindu  religious 
system,  which  has  for  ages  enabled  it  to  retain  within  its 
pale  sects  holding  the  most  divergent  theological  opinions 
and  observing  the  most  dissimilar  customs.  Henceforth 
pronounced  heretics  of  the  Brahma  type  will  have  to  openly 
^  Sir  Alfred  Lyall,  Asiatic  Studies,  First  Series,  pp.  8,  9. 
120 


THEISM   IN  BENGAL 

acknowledge  themselves  to  be  non-Hindtis,  a  fact  which  will 
make  their  reabsorption,  at  any  future  date,  into  the  old 
national  faith  a  matter  of  considerable  difficulty.  Whether 
the  conditions  thus  created  by  the  operation  of  British 
Indian  law  will  be  prejudicial  to  Hinduism  or  the  reverse, 
is  an  open  question,  which  Time  alone  can  decide. 


121 


THEISM  IN  BE}!^GA'L— continued 

Section  IV. — Kesliub  Chunder  Sen  worshipped  by  some  followers — His 
views  in  respect  to  his  own  mission — Visit  to  England — Result. 

^OWEVEE,  the  career  of  Keshub  was  not 
without  its  dark  days.  Dazzled,  I  may  say 
burthened,  by  the  eloquence  of  their  leader, 
and  by  the  figure  he  was  making  in  the 
world,  many  of  his  followers  began  to  wor- 
ship him  as  an  incarnation  of  the  Deity,  and 
to  supplicate  his  intercession  on  their  behalf. 

Certainly  this  was  nothing  new  in  the  history  of  Indian 
sects,  for  the  worship  of  living  religious  leaders  and  teachers 
(usually  called  by  the  general  name  Guru)  is  common  all 
over  India. 

What  the  recipient  of  these  divine  honours  did  to 
discountenance  them  is  not  very  clear,  but  two  of  the 
missionaries  of  his  own  Church,  presumably  with  sufficient 
reason,  published  in  a  Calcutta  newspaper  a  letter,  which  I 
reproduce  without  abridgment,  on  account  of  the  side-light 
it  throws  on  certain  phases  of  religious  development : 

A  NEW  DEITY. 

"  Sir, — For  the  information  of  that  section  of  your 
readers  who  are  Brahmas,  please  publish  the  following 
protest  agaiiist  a  mischievous  and  unBrahmic  practice 
of  certain  Brahmas  of  Calcutta  and  the  Mofussil : 

"We  are  astonished  and  grieved  to  observe  that 
some  Brahmas  have  begun  to  acknowledge  Baboo 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  as  a  saviour  of  men,  commissioned 
by  God.  They  accordingly  call  him  'Good  Lord, 
Redeemer,  etc.,'  and  pray  to  him  for  salvation  in  this 
wise: 

122 


THEISM   IN  BENGAL 

" '  Good  Lord !  I  am  a  great  sinner,  have  mercy  on 
me  and  save  me.  Lead  me  to  the  feet  of  thy  merciful 
father.     0  don't  forsake  me ! ' 

"  Even  to  divine  service  they  have  given  an  objec- 
tionable form.  They  now  offer  up  their  prayers  to 
God,  through  Keshub  Baboo.  We  have  heard  a 
Brahma  pray  to  Keshub  Baboo  thus : 

" '  Good  Lord,  I  am  a  great  sinner.  I  cannot  enter- 
tain a  hope  that  God  will  hear  my  prayer.  Do  pray 
for  me  to  your  merciful  father.' 

"This  sort  of  proceeding  on  the  part  of  certain 
Brahmas  has  given  a  shock  to  almost  all  Brahma 
Samajes,  as  has  been  brought  to  notice  during  a  tour  in 
the  Alofussil,  and  many  are  jumping  to  the  conclusion 
that  Keshub  Baboo  is  propagating  his  own  worship  and 
not  that  of  God.  But  we  would  advise  them  to  wait 
till  we  hear  anything  from  him  for  or  against  this 
practice. 

"  In  conclusion,  we  beg  of  our  Brahma  brethren,  who 
have  thus  begun  to  worship  Keshub  Baboo,  to  think 
what  they  are  about ;  what  a  dangerous  doctrine  they 
are  preaching  to  the  world,  a  doctrine  which  has  been 
the  cause  of  all  bitterness  and  antipathy  between 
religious  sects,  and  which  has  ultimately  led  men  to 
pseudo-divine  honours.  We  also  beg  of  Keshub  Baboo 
to  direct  his  efforts  to  put  a  stop  to  the  above  practice, 
and  disabuse  the  public  mind  that  is  prejudiced  against 
him.  "  Jadoo  Nath  Chuckekbutty, 

"  Buoy  Kesskn  GoswAiiEE, 
"  Missionaries  of  the  Brahma  Samaj  of  India. 

"  Calcutta,  20th  October  1868."  ^ 

The  threatened  storm  blew  over.  Explanations  were 
apparently  given  and  accepted.  Some  pretended  to  pooh- 
pooh  the  whole  thing,  and  to  regard  the  matter,  so  far  as  it 
affected  the  conduct  and  character  of  Keshub,  as  mere  idle 
calumny.  However,  there  are  peculiarities  in  Keshub 
Chunder's  views  of  his  own  mission,  which  are  of  some 
interest  in  this  connection.  In  1866,  in  a  lecture  on  "  Great 
Men,"  he  propounded  the  doctrine  that  God  manifests  Him- 
self in  history  through  great  men,  who  "  are  great  on  account 
of  the  large  measure  of  the  divine  spirit  which  they  possess 
and  manifest." 

1  Indian  Daily  News,  .28th  October  1868. 
123 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

It  is  only  fair  to  add  that  while  Keshub  considered  that 
the  prophet  should  be  "  honoured  ^  as  a  teacher,"  he  himself 
declared  that  the  "idolatrous  bending  of  the  knee  before 
man  is  an  insult  to  Heaven,  and  an  audacious  violation  of 
that  entire  loyalty  and  allegiance  to  God  which  is  demanded 
of  every  true  believer."  ^ 

Eegarding  his  ideas  at  this  time  we  can  probably  form 
a  fair  conception  from  his  public  lectures  delivered  in 
1866-69,^  which  are  somewhat  more  sober  and  substantial, 
less  metaphysical  and  frothy,  than  those  which  in  later 
years  dazzled  by  their  rhetoric,  but  mystified  by  their 
transcendentalism  the  thousands  who  pressed  to  hear  him 
year  after  year  in  the  Town  Hall  of  Calcutta. 

He  believed  in  the  unity  of  God — "  One  without  a 
second,"  and  laid  special  emphasis  upon  His  immanence. 
"  God  the  Creator,"  he  said,  "  should  not  be  considered  apart 
from  God  the  Preserver,  He  is  the  immanent  power  of  the 
world,  its  indwelling  life."  The  immortahty  of  the  soul 
he  firmly  believed  in,  and  a  future  state  of  rewards  and 
punishments. 

God,  he  held,  makes  Himself  known  to  us  through  His 
wonderful  works;  through  "great  men  who  are  sent  into 
the  world  to  benefit  mankind  "  when  the  necessity  for  their 
appearance  arises ;  and  lastly,  "  through  the  soul  or  con- 
science of  each  individual." 

He  strongly  maintained  the  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith,  saying:  "A  man  is  justified  by  faith,  and  not  by 
deeds,  however  excellent."  Indeed  hhakti,  or  living  faith 
in  the  Supreme  Being,  was  one  of  the  strongest  and  most 
notable  characteristics  of  the  great  men  already  sent  into 
the  world  by  God  to  benefit  mankind.  Jesus  commanded 
Keshub's  highest  love  and  admiration.  He  certainly  makes 
allusion  to  Chaitanya,  the  great  Bengali  prophet,  whose 
doctrines  of  justification  by  faith,  and  the  necessity  of 
ecstatic  union  with  God  (Krishna),  seem  to  have  been  in 

^  Lecture  on  "The  Future  Church,"  January  1869. 

2  Lecture  on  "  Great  Men,"  1866. 

^  The  lectures  were — (1)  "Jesus  Christ;  Europe  and  Asia,"  5th  May 
1866.  (2)  "Great  Men,"  28th  September  1866.  (3)  "  Regenerating  Faith," 
24th  January  1868  ;  and  (4)  "The  Future  Church,"  23rd  January  1869. 

{24 


THEISM  IN  BENGAL 

complete  harmony  with  his  own  ideas  and  feelings,^  but  Christ 
was  apparently  the  object  of  Keshub's  special  homage.  No 
one  who  denied  the  divinity  of  Christ  could  speak  of  Him 
with  more  love  and  reverence  than  did  Keshub,  who  seems 
to  have  been  deeply  touched  and  powerfully  influenced  by 
his  study  of  the  Bible,  and  especially  the  Gospel  history. 
His  attitude  towards  the  Bible  was  somewhat  peculiar  for 
a  non-believer,  since  he  seems  to  have  accepted  without 
doubt  or  cavil  the  historicity  of  the  entire  Bible  story, 
from  the  fall  of  man  in  Eden  to  the  founding  of  Christianity 
amongst  the  Gentiles  by  St.  Paul 

There  was,  however,  no  existing  form  of  Christianity 
which  Keshub  was  prepared  to  adopt.  He  was  apparently 
impressed  with  the  idea  that  he  was  himself  a  "  great  man  " 
of  the  kind  he  had  spoken  about,  and  that  he  had  a  special 
mission  of  his  oion  to  accomplish.  But  there  was  nothing 
very  novel  or  striking  in  this.  Vain  men  and  dreamers 
have,  in  all  ages,  been  apt  to  flatter  themselves  with  such 
notions.  A  new  Church,  Keshub  told  the  world,  would 
arise,  which,  repudiating  idolatry,  pantheism,  and  man- 
worship,  would  "  uphold  the  absolute  infinity  and  unity  of 
the  Divine  Creator."  This  new  Church  would  be  "the 
result  of  the  purer  elements  of  the  leading  creeds  of  the 
day,  harmonised,  developed,  and  shaped  under  the  influence 
of  Christianity." 

In  Keshub's  opinion  both  Hinduism  and  Muhamraa- 
danism,  and  probably  all  other  religions,  contained  certain 
central  truths,  surrounded  by  errors.  In  his  "Church  of 
the  Future" — which  he  predicted  would  be  unsparingly 
destructive  of  idolatry,  pantheism,  and  prophet-worship — 
all  that  is  good  in  the  different  rehgious  systems  would  be 
rescued  and  preserved,  while  im-important  dififerences  would 
be  swallowed  up  in  a  community  of  feelings  and  interests. 
In  this  Church  of  the  Future,  which  would  eventually  be 
embraced  by  all  mankind,  each  nation  would  retain  its  own 
peculiar  style  and  ceremonial.  There  would  "  be  unity  of 
spirit,  but  diversity  of  forms."  With  respect  to  essentials, 
there  could  not,  of  course,  be  any  difference. 

*  For  an  account  of  Chaitanya  and  his  sect,  see  Professor  Monier  Williams, 
Bdigiova  Thought  and  Life  in  India,  pp.  138-145. 

125 


BRAHMANS,  TMEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

Divested  of  its  rhetorical  adjuncts  and  reduced  to  its 
proper  proportions,  Keshub's  idea  was  simply  this.  In  the 
course  of  time  men  would  gradually  refine  their  respective 
creeds  by  eliminating,  one  by  one,  the  errors  which  dis- 
figured or  obscured  those  central  truths,  which  all  possessed 
in  a  more  or  less  degree.  By  this  process  of  elimination 
the  professors  of  all  the  leading  creeds  would  eventually 
arrive  at  a  pure  form  of  theistic  religion,  which,  in  regard 
to  essentials,  would  be  the  same  everywhere. 

The  realisation  of  the  Future  Church  was  seen  as  some- 
thing far  off,  but  Keshub  was  apparently  impressed  with 
the  belief  that  his  mission  was  to  hasten  the  desired 
result. 

Holding  the  ideas  and  opinions  which  I  have  attempted 
to  summarise  in  the  preceding  pages,  Keshub  visited 
Britain  early  in  1870.  He  preached  or  lectured  in  all  the 
principal  cities  of  both  England  and  Scotland.  Men  and 
women  of  all  ranks  and  opinions  crowded  to  hear  the  dusky 
but  eloquent  speaker  from  the  Far  East,  and  vied  with  each 
other  in  expressions  of  genuine  admiration  of  the  mental 
and  moral  gifts  of  their  remarkable  visitor.  The  Babu  was 
lionised  a  good  deal,  and  even  Eoyalty  made  a  point  of 
noticing  this  unofficial  representative  from  England's  Indian 
Empire.  From  his  Diary  in  England}  it  appears  that 
Keshub  saw  a  good  deal  of  the  leaders  and  influential 
members  of  the  Unitarian  Church  in  England,  both 
Christian  and  purely  theistic,  and  he  could  not  have  failed 
to  learn  from  themselves  or  their  published  writings,  the 
peculiar  tenets  of  the  several  sections  into  which  theists 
in  England  and  America  have  separated  themselves.  He 
preached  in  many  Unitarian  chapels,  and  was  everywhere 
listened  to  with  deferential  attention.  After  learning  all 
about  the  Unitarians  both  within  and  without  the  pale  of 
Christianity,  and  obtaining  an  insight  into  the  dogmas  and 
constitution  of  "  the  countless  and  conflicting  sects "  of 
Christians  in  England,  a  subject  to  which  he  made  pointed 
allusion  in  a  speech  at  Birmingham,  Keshub  returned  to  his 
native  land,  a  "  confirmed  Indian  "  and  a  confirmed  theist. 

At  the  end  of  his  six  months'  tour  in  England,  Keshub 
^  Published  by  the  Brahma  Tract  Society,  1886. 
126 


THEISM  IN  BENGAL 

gave  a  farewell  address  at  Southampton,  in  which,  after 
affirming  his  belief  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  the 
Brotherhood  of  Man,  he  proceeded  to  say: 

"The  true  kingdom  of  God  will  not  be  realised, 
unless  the  East  and  the  West  are  joined  together,  for 
it  has  been  said,  and  every  day,  through  inspiration, 
we  may  hear  the  voice  from  God,  that  the  East  and 
West,  the  North  and  the  South,  shall  sit  down  in  the 
kingdom  of  God.  The  West,  with  all  its  thought  and 
cultm-e,  its  social  pimty  and  domestic  sweetness,  is 
but  half  the  circle  of  human  civilisation  and  progress. 
The  East  is  the  other  half.  I  admire  the  earnestness 
and  firmness  of  purpose  which  I  have  seen  here;  I 
admire  those  stupendous  works  of  noble  and  dis- 
interested charity  in  which  thousands  of  pure  and 
generous-minded  English  men  and  women  are  daily 
engaged.  I  admire  the  force  of  will  and  the  strength 
of  character  which  I  see  in  your  nation;  I  feel  that 
you  have  nerves  of  adamant,  with  which  you  overcome 
any  amount  of  opposition,  and  surmount  obstacles  that 
may  come  in  your  path ;  but  this  is  not  all  that  God 
requires  of  us.  When  I  turn  to  my  country  and  the 
East,  I  find  warmth  of  heart,  solitary  contemplation  on 
her  hills  and  mountains,  deep  communion  with  the 
indwelling  and  omniscient  spirit  of  the  One  Supreme 
God ;  I  see  a  voluntary  and  deliberate  withdrawing  of 
the  heart  from  all  anxieties  and  cares  of  the  world  for 
a  time,  in  order  to  engage  in  uninterrupted  contempla- 
tion of  the  attributes  of  God;  I  see  the  heart  in  all 
its  fervour  and  sympathy  directed  in  daily  communion 
towards  the  one  loving  Father.  I  see  there  the  heart 
of  man,  and  in  England  the  mind  of  man, — there  the 
soul,  here  the  will ;  and  as  it  is  our  duty  to  love  God 
with  all  our  heart  and  soul  and  mind  and  strength, 
it  is  necessary  that  all  these  four  elements  of  character 
should  be  united.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  religious  fervour  in  this  nation,  nor 
do  I  mean  to  say  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
practical  righteousness  in  the  nations  of  the  East,  but 
that  each  nation,  so  at  least  I  believe,  represents  only 
one  side  of  truth,  and  represents  it  with  pecuhar 
fidelity.  The  truths  which  are  represented  in  England 
and  Western  countries  generally,  are  those  which  refer 
to  force  of  character,  earnestness  of  purpose,  conscien- 
127- 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

tious  strictness,  noble  charity,  practical  duty,  whilst 
the  truths  which  I  find  peculiarly  developed  in  Indian 
— developed  to  a  greater  extent  than  anywhere  else — 
and  in  Eastern  countries  generally,  are  those  which 
have  reference  to  sweetness  of  communion,  sweetness 
of  temper,  meekness,  and  resignation  to  God.  Is  it 
not  then  our  duty  as  brothers  to  unite  England  and 
India,  the  East  and  the  West,  that  the  East  may 
receive  some  of  the  truths  of  the  West,  and  the  West 
some  of  the  grand  ideas  of  Eastern  countries  ? "  ^ 

The  contrast  between  the  busy,  practical  West  and  the 
dreamy,  meditative  East — drawn  with  so  much  insight  and 
expressed  above  with  so  much  propriety — seems  to  have 
made  a  strong  impression  on  Keshub  Chunder,  and  we  find 
him,  on  his  return  to  India,  vigorously  initiating  and  carry- 
ing out  various  measures  of  social  reform,  suggested  by  the 
new  ideas  he  had  brought  from  Europe.  Of  course  it  is 
not  to  be  supposed  that  his  journey  to  Europe  had  simply 
directed  Keshub  Chunder's  energies  towards  the  realisation 
of  practical  aims.  The  effect  produced  upon  his  character, 
his  self-esteem,  and  his  future  work  by  the  reception  he 
received  in  England  must  have  been  considerable.  It  is  a 
far  cry  from  Calcutta  to  London.  In  Keshub 's  case  it  was 
no  small  thing  for  him  to  have  been  taken  about  to  this  place 
and  the  other  by  an  ex- Viceroy  of  India,  to  have  dined  with 
Dukes  and  Cabinet  Ministers,  to  have  been  escorted  hither 
and  thither  by  admiring  English  ladies,  to  have  had  his 
acquaintance  sought  by  men  like  Dean  Stanley  and  John 
Stuart  Mill,  to  have  been  consulted  by  members  of  H.M, 
Government,  to  have  had  his  photograph  asked  for  by 
Eoyalty,  and  last,  but  by  no  means  least,  to  have  had  his 
opinions  on  religious  and  even  political  matters  received  in 
England  as  the  opinions,  not  of  a  merely  well-informed 
person,  but  of  a  leader  and  teacher  of  men. 

'  Keshvib  Chunder  Sen  in  England.     (Bralima  Tract  Society,  Calcutta.) 
Second  Edition,  1887,  pp.  388-390. 


128 


THEISM  IN  BENGAL— continued 

Section  V. — Keshub  Chunder  Sen's  proceedings,  which  lead  to  a  new 
schism  and  the  founding  of  the  Seidharan  Brahma  Samaj. 

IT  may  be  difficult  to  judge  what  effect  all  the  well- 
meant  attentions  he  received  in  England  may  have 
had  on  the  character  of  Keshub,  but  he  must  have 
been  more  than  human  if  he  did  not  come  back 
to  his  native  land  with  an  exalted  opinion  of  his 
own  place  in  the  world,  and  of  his  mission  for  the 
regeneration  of  mankind.  His  first  step  on  his  return  to 
Calcutta  was  to  found  the  "Indian  Reform  Association," 
composed  of  Hindus,  Muhammadans,  Parsees,  and  Euro- 
peans, with  a  view  to  promote  the  moral  and  social  better- 
ment of  the  natives  of  India,  by  especial  attention  to  the 
amelioration  of  the  condition  of  women,  by  the  spread  of 
education  and  cheap  literature,  and  the  discouragement  of 
intemperance.  In  furtherance  of  the  proposed  objects,  a 
female  normal  and  adult  school  and  a  theological  seminary 
were  established. 

A  newspaper  was  started  at  the  low  price  of  one  pice 
the  copy.  A  boarding  house  for  Brahmas  was  opened  at 
Calcutta,  and  other  institutions  inaugurated. 

But  Keshub,  once  the  fiery  leader  of  the  extreme  radical 
party,  was  already  too  conservative  for  the  younger  genera- 
tion. They  desired  to  do  away  with  the  purdah  which 
screened  the  women  during  worship  at  the  Mandir.  This 
innovation  was  not  to  the  reformer's  taste,  for,  as  one  of 
his  biographers  says :  "  He  was  always  against  the  kind  of 
female  emancipation  in  vogue  amongst  the  Europeans,"^ 
a  fact  which,  had  they  known  of  it,  would  have  been  dis- 

^  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Keshvh  Chunder  Sen,  especially  prepared  for 
the  Students*  Jubilee.     (Vedanta  Press,  Calcutta. ) 
I  120 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

appointing  to  the  ladies  who  so  kindly  took  Keshub  by 
the  hand  in  England.  However,  a  compromise  was  made. 
Seats  were  placed  outside  the  purdah  for  such  ladies  as 
might  care  to  use  them. 

To  obviate  any  misapprehension  with  respect  to 
Keshub's  attitude  towards  woman  in  the  abstract,  I 
should  add  that : 

"To  him  woman  was  the  incarnation  of  divinity. 
He  never  proposed  to  compare  the  superiority  or 
inferiority  of  man  and  woman.  In  woman  he  saw 
God.  The  tenderness  of  a  wife  or  a  mother  was  to 
him  a  celestial  fact;  and  seeing  God  in  woman,  he 
honoured  woman  with  all  the  Christlike  honour — all 
the  tenderness  and  sweetness — the  lingering  memories 
of  which  pierced  like  barbed  arrows  the  hearts  of 
many  faithful  and  true  women  he  left  behind  him."  ^ 

The  quondam  worshipper  of  Kali  and  Durga  might  well 
see  divinity  in  woman,  but  the  worldly-wise  Oriental  realised 
the  undesirability,  at  any  rate  in  Bengal,  of  freely  associating 
women  with  men  even  in  divine  worship. 

The  period  at  which  we  have  arrived  seems  to  have  been 
with  Keshub  one  of  restless  religious  excitement.  In  1873 
he  brought  the  doctrine  of  Adesh,  or  special  inspiration, 
rather  prominently  forward,  declaring  emphatically  that 
inspiration  is  not  only  possible,  but  is  a  veritable  fact  in  the 
lives  of  many  devout  souls  in  this  age.^  This  dangerous 
doctrine  which,  as  subsequent  events  proved,  could  only  too 
easily  be  made  use  of  for  unworthy  purposes,  met  with  many 
opponents  amongst  the  more  sober-minded  Samajists.  The 
year  1874  and  two  or  three  years  following,  witnessed  a 
special  development  of  that  essentially  Asiatic,  and  perhaps 
more  especially  Indian,  form  of  religious  feeling,  which  finds 
its  natural  satisfaction  in  solitary  ecstatic  contemplation. 
As  a  necessary  consequence,  an  order  of  devotees  was 
established  in  1876,  divided  into  three  main  classes,  which 
in  ascending  gradation  were  designated  Shabaks,  Bhaktas, 
and  Yogis.    The  lowest  class,  divided  into  two  sections,  is 

^  Mr.  P.  C.  Mozoondar,  "  Aims  and  Principles  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  "  : 
A  sermon  delivered  in  the  Town  Hall,  Calcutta. 

^Lecture  on  Inspiration,  delivered  on  the  25th  January  1873. 

130 


THEISM   IN   BENGAL 

devoted  to  religious  study  and  the  pi-actical  performance 
of  religious  duties,  including  doing  good  to  others.  The 
aspiration  of  the  Bhakta  is  "  inebriation  in  God."  He  "  is 
most  passionately  fond  of  God,  and  delights  in  loving  Him, 
and  all  that  pertains  to  Him.  .  .  .  The  very  utterance  of 
the  Divine  name  causes  his  heart  to  overflow,  and  brings 
tears  of  joy  to  his  eyes."  As  for  the  highest  order  of 
devotees," the  Yogis — "they  live  in  the  spirit-world,  and 
readily  commune  with  spiritual  realities.  They  welcome 
whatever  is  a  help  to  the  subjugation  of  the  entire  soul,  and 
are  always  employed  in  conquering  selfishness,  carnality, 
and  worldliness.  They  are  happy  in  prayer  and  meditation, 
and  in  the  study  of  nature."  This  last  addition  about  the 
study  of  nature  appears,  to  say  the  least,  extremely  un- 
practical, if  not  foolish,  for  the  Yogi  is  also  admonished  by 
Keshub  to  draw  his  feet,  his  ears,  his  eyes,  and  his  hands 
away  from  the  world,  and  to  concentrate  them  within  his 
mon  sold,  a  procedure  not  likely  to  lead  to  results  in  science, 
and  is  possibly  a  concession,  though  a  mere  verbal  concession, 
to  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Initiations  into  these  various  ascetic 
orders  were  actually  made  by  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  who, 
in  his  address  on  the  occasion,  informed  the  Yogis  that 
there  would  be  some  difference  between  himself  and  the 
men  who  sat  around  him,  as  the  message  of  light  would 
come  to  them  through  him,^  As  for  the  Minister,  he  too 
went  into  retirement  to  give  himself  up  to  contemplation. 
As  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  predominance  in  the 
church  of  the  spirit  of  renunciation  and  the  practice 
of  solitary  communion  with  God,  the  business  side  of  the 
Samaj  suffered.  The  schools  were  neglected,  some  had  to 
be  closed,  and  other  undertakings  came,  similarly,  to  an 
untimely  end.  Keshub  had  already  passed  the  meridian 
of  his  intellectual  and  working  life.  The  stimulating  effect 
of  his  visit  to  England  was  wearing  off.  He  and  his 
followers  were,  in  fact,  drifting  back  into  the  hereditary 
Yogaism  and  pantheism  of  India,  which,  as  I  shall  show 
further  on,  were  assuming  larger  proportions  in  Keshub's 
mind.  The  religious  tendencies  exhibited  by  Keshub  since 
his  return  from  England,  and  especially  his  assumption  of 
*  Miss  E.  B.  Collet,  The  Brahma  Year-Book  for  1877,  pp.  23-25. 
131 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

autocratic  superiority  in  all  matters  connected  even  with 
the  secular  business  and  arrangements  of  the  Samaj, — his 
most  ardent  admirers  admit  that  he  could  not  brook 
opposition, — led  to  the  estrangement  of  a  small  number  of 
his  followers,  forming,  apparently,  a  compact  party  in  the 
Samaj,  who  raised  their  protests  from  time  to  time  against 
the  proceedings  of  their  leader.  The  tension  of  ill-feeling 
growing  out  of  rivalries  and  unsatisfied  aspirations  in  the 
Samaj  was  gradually  increasing,  when  a  deliberate  act  of 
the  reformer  gave  his  opponents  their  opportunity,  and 
called  down  upon  himself  the  public  censure  of  his 
followers,  recorded  in  a  resolution  adopted  at  a  public 
meeting  held  on  the  22nd  March  1878. 

The  resolution  is  sufficiently  precise  to  need  no  com- 
mentary.    It  was  couched  in  the  following  words: — 

"  That  in  the  opinion  of  the  members  of  the  con- 
gregation of  the  Bharatvarshiya  Brahma  Mandir, 
assembled  in  this  meeting,  Babu  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen,  the  Minister  of  the  Mandir,  by  countenancing 
the  premature  marriage  of  his  daughter,  has  violated 
principles  accepted  by  himself  and  the  Brahma  Samaj 
of  India,  and  by  allowing  Hindu  rites  to  be  observed 
in  connection  with  that  marriage,  has  sanctioned  an 
idolatrous  early  marriage,  consequently,  in  the  opinion 
of  this  meeting,  he  cannot  continue  in  the  office  of 
the  Minister."  ^ 

An  attempt  was  made  to  get  possession  of  the  Mandir, 
but  Keshub  invoked  the  assistance  of  the  police,  and 
frustrated  his  opponents. 

The  bridegroom  in  this  case  was,  it  should  be  added,  a 
person  of  high  rank,  the  boy  Kajah  of  Cooch  Behar,  a  fact 
which  accounts  for,  though  it  cannot  justify,  the  action  of 
the  reformer,^  whose  devoted  followers  however,  believing 

'  G.  S.  Leonard,^  History  of  the  Brahma  Samaj,  p.  165. 

'  In  connection  with  this  marriage  the  following  extract  from  a  news- 
paper under  native  management,  published  at  Lahore,  will  not  perhaps  be 
iininteresting : — 

"The  Maharajah  of  Cooch  Behar  has  made  the  handsome  present  of 
Rs.5000  to  the  shrine  of  Kali-Ghat  to  propitiate  the  goddess  on  behalf  of  the 
new-born  heir  to  the  Raj.  A  similar  sum  has  also  been  paid  to  the  Kurta 
of  the  Muchooa  Bazaar  Street.  But  the  Rajah,  we  were  assured  by  Baboo 
K.  G.  Sen,  was  a  staunch  Brahmo." — The  Tribune,  Lahore,  20th  May  1882. 

132 


THEISM   IN   BENGAL 

in  the  doctrine  of  Adesh,  asserted  that  in  this,  as  in  other 
matters,  their  leader  acted  under  divine  inspiration,  acted 
indeed  by  God's  direct  command.  The  Prophet  Muhammad, 
it  is  well  known,  often  claimed  to  have  been  similarly 
favoured  in  matters  domestic. 

The  events  just  narrated  brought  matters  to  a  crisis. 
Another  schism  took  place  in  the  church,  and  a  party  of 
uncompromising  theists,  under  the  leadership  of  Pandit 
Sevanath  Sastri  started,  on  the  15th  May  1878,  a  new 
Samaj,  known  henceforth  as  the  Sadharan  or  Universal 
Brahma  Samaj.  The  creed  of  this,  the  youngest  of  the 
Brahma  sects  is,  briefly — 

1.  Belief  in  the  immortality  of  an  infinite  creator. 

2.  Belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

3.  Belief  in  the  duty  and  necessity  of  spiritual  worship 

of  God. 

4.  Disbelief  in  any  infallible  book,  or  man,  as  the  means 

of  salvation.^ 

The  Sadharan  Brahma  Samaj  has  set  its  face  steadily 
against  idolatry  and  caste.  One  of  its  rules  is  that  "  none 
but  Brahmos  who  have  entirely  discarded  idolatry  and  caste 
in  their  private  lives  can  be  office-bearers,  ministers,  mission- 
aries, or  members  of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Samaj." ^ 

As  a  precaution  against  the  undue  ascendancy  or 
arbitrary  action  of  individuals,  the  constitution  of  the 
Samaj  has  been  laid  down  upon  democratic  lines,  all 
disputed  points  being  put  to  and  decided  by  the  votes  of 
the  members.  The  Samaj,  which  has  been  in  existence  for 
twenty-eight  years,  has  been  very  active,  and  has  achieved 
a  fair  measure  of  success  in  Calcutta. 

Being  a  purely  theistic  sect  of  the  type  long  known  in 
Europe  and  America,  the  Sadharan  Brahma  Samaj  has,  of 
course,  many  friends  outside  India,  but  this  very  fact, 
together  with  the  pronounced  non-Hindu  character  of  the 
Samaj,  will  undoubtedly  prove  prejudicial  to  its  influence 
in  its  own  country,  and  prevent  its  growth  beyond  very 
moderate  limits. 

^  Pandit  Sevanath  Sastri,  M.A.,  The  New  Dispensation  and  (he  SadJiaran 
Brahma  Samaj,  p.  90. 
2  Idem,  p.  108. 

133 


THEISM  IN  BENGAL-continued 

Section  VI,— Keslmb  believes  himself  to  be  a  prophet— Proclaims  the 
New  Dispensation— Its  aims  and  objects— Keshub's  death— Subseciuent 
history  of  the  sect. 

!HE  schism  which  culminated  in  the  formation 
of  the  Sadharan  Brahma  Samaj  was  a  very 
serious  event  in  the  career  of  Keshub  Chunder 
Sen,  and  was  met  in  characteristic  fashion. 
To  cover  his  recent  defeat,  he  made  more 
arrogant  claims  as  a  divinely  appointed 
teacher  than  at  any  previous  stage  of  his  public  life,  and 
at  the  same  time,  in  virtue  ostensibly  of  a  new  commission 
from  God,  materially  revised  his  teachings  to  suit  his  altered 
circumstances,  and  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  his  case. 

Within  a  few  months  of  the  schism  just  referred  to, 
the  reformer  took  as  the  theme  of  a  public  discourse  the 
question  "  Am  I  an  inspired  Prophet  ? "  and  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  "  he  was  not  as  ordinary  men  are,"  that  he 
was  under  direct  divine  inspiration,  and  "  commissioned  by 
God  to  preach  certain  truths,"  and  that  those  who  protested 
against  his  preaching  protested  against  the  dispensations  of 
God  Almighty.  In  a  word,  Keshub,  while  still  sometimes 
affecting  humility,  declared  himself  a  prophet  in  unmis- 
takable words.  Further,  probably  as  a  sort  of  apology  or 
explanation  of  his  inconsistencies  and  doctrinal  caprices,  he 
informed  the  world  that  the  Lord  had  told  him  he  was  to 
have  "  no  doctrine,  no  creed,  but  a  perennial  and  perpetual 
inspiration  from  Heaven." 

Now  Keshub's  hitherto  ostentatiously  professed  leanings 
towards  Christianity  had  undoubtedly  militated  against  his 
popularity  with  his  own  countrymen,  so  he  seems  to  have 
deemed  it  advisable  at  the  present  crisis  to  revise  his  creed 

134 


To  face  page  134 


THEISM   IN  BENGAL 

in  this  respect,  and  henceforth  gave  greater  prominence  to 
Hindu  ideals  and  sentiments  in  his  theology.  Dr.  Bhatta- 
charjee  has  pointed  out  that  the  moment  was  peculiarly 
convenient  for  such  a  change;  as  Keshub's  distinguished 
patron,  Lord  Lawrence,  a  man  of  deep  religious  convictions, 
who  had  done  so  much  to  bring  the  Bengali  reformer 
prominently  before  the  world  as  one  about  to  become  a 
Christian,  had  recently  died  in  England.  Released  from 
the  ties  of  gratitude  which,  through  the  friendship  of 
the  late  Viceroy  of  India,  had  bound  him  to  Christianity, 
Keshub  remodelled  his  old  opinions  and  taught  quite  a 
new  doctrine. 

The  views  which  at  this  period  Keshub  expressed  in 
regard  to  Christ  and  Christianity,  divested  of  their 
mysticism  and  disentangled  from  the  web  of  rhetoric 
which  he  spun  round  them,  are  both  curious  and  inter- 
esting. He  held,  as  the  outcome  of  long  years  of  study 
and  meditation,  that  the  Asiatic  Christ  of  history,  the 
man  of  Nazareth,  is  only  partially  understood  in  Europe, 
and,  in  important  points,  totally  misunderstood.  The  Christ 
offered  to  India  by  the  English  missionary — a  man  of 
narrow  dogmas  and  practical  good  works — was  in  Keshub's 
opinion  an  English  version  of  the  true  Christ  of  Judaea. 
This  true  Christ,  the  Asiatic  Christ,  was  a  pantheist  and  a 
yogi ! — a  yogi  of  unblemished  virtue,  who  retired  to  the 
mountains  to  pray.  The  memorable  assertion  "  I  and  my 
Father  are  One "  was,  as  Keshub  understood  it,  but  the 
expression  of  the  doctrine  of  communion  with  divinity — 
that  communion  which  necessarily  follows  from  the  total 
suppression  of  self,  and  is  familiar  to  Hindu  philosophy 
and  theology.  The  claim  made  by  Jesus  in  the  words 
"  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am,"  meant  to  Keshub  no  more 
than  this:  that  Christ  felt  He  had  existed  potentially  in 
the  Supreme  Being  from  all  eternity — "  though  the  human 
Christ  was  born,  all  that  was  divine  in  Him  existed  eternally 
in  God."^  It  will  be  noticed  that  Keshub  Chunder  Sen 
indulged  in  no  critical  objections  to  the  authenticity  of  the 
Gospels.    He  accepts  them  in  their  entirety,  but  assumes 

'  Keshob  Chunder  Sen,  Lecture  "India  asks,  'Who  ia  Christ  1'"  9th 
April  1879. 

135 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

the  right  of  interpreting  the  history  of  Christ's  life  and 
works  in  his  own  way,  which  is  characteristically  Indian, 
showing  clearly  what  firm  hold  pantheism  and  Yogaism 
have  upon  the  mind  of  India ;  and  how  necessary  it  is  to 
keep  them  prominently  in  view  when  studying  Indian  life 
or  estimating  former  or  contemporary  religious  develop- 
ments in  India.  In  the  days  of  his  intellectual  and  physical 
vigour,  before  his  visit  to  England,  we  find  Keshub  speaking 
of  pantheism,  "  with  its  arrogant  spirit  of  self -adoration,"  in 
terms  of  strong  disapproval,  and  predicting  that  it,  along 
with  other  evils,  would  find  no  place  in  the  Church  of  the 
Future.  But  ten  years  later,  1879,  this  inspired  teacher 
tells  the  world,  "  I  am  in  spirit  a  pantheist,  though  I  hate 
the  errors  of  pantheism.  I  wish  to  encourage  this  spirit 
of  pantheism  in  India"; ^  and  in  another  place: 

"  Pantheism  and  mysticism  are  things  of  Asia,  while 
positivism  and  all  the  sciences  of  the  day  are  from 
Europe.  My  Church  is  an  Asiatic  Church.  I  am  in 
my  very  bones  and  blood,  in  the  very  constitution  of 
my  soul,  essentially  an  Asiatic.  .  .  .  Like  a  mighty 
river  the  stream  of  natural  devotion  comes  into  my 
Church  from  the  Vedas  and  the  Upanishads,  the  pan- 
theistic books  and  mystic  scriptures  of  ancient  India." 

As  to  Yogaism  he  says : 

"Though  living  in  the  nineteenth  century,  I  go 
back  to  the  mystic  age  to  drink  of  the  pure  fountain  of 
Yoga  communion  there.  I  go  to  the  Aryan  Yogis  of 
ancient  India  to  learn  contemplation." 

Keshub  must  have  felt  that  he  was  called  upon  to  prove 
his  credentials  by  effecting  something  noteworthy — some- 
thing that  might  satisfy  the  aspirations  of  his  followers, 
and  be  an  answer  to  his  adversaries.  Let  us  see  what  he 
attempted,  and  what  success  attended  his  efforts. 

Out  of  the  hosts  of  the  Hindu  Pantheon  the  Bengalis 
have,  as  explained  in  an  earlier  chapter,  the  goddesses 
Durga  and  Kali  as  the  special  objects  of  their  worship, 
and  throughout  their  religious  development  have  manifested 
a  marked  leaning  towards  the  adoration  of  Sakti  or  the 
female  energy.  Naturally,  therefore,  Keshub  Chunder  Sen, 
'  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  Lecture  "  Am  I  an  inspired  Prophet?" 
136 


THEISM  IN  BENGAL 

under  national  and  hereditary  influences,  recognised  in  the 
Supreme  Ruler  of  the  Universe,  the  mother  of  mankind. 
He  proclaimed  the  motherhood  of  God  in  his  usual  im- 
pulsive, emotional,  and  extravagant  way  in  the  year  1879. 
Flags  inscribed  with  the  word  "Mother"  were  hoisted 
upon  the  house-tops,  and  processions  paraded  the  streets 
singing  hymns  to  the  Divine  Mother,  who  is  made  to  say, 
in  the  Mirror  of  the  12th  October  1879 :  "Ye  shall  go  forth 
from  village  to  village,  singing  my  mercies,  and  proclaiming 
unto  all  men  that  I  am  India's  Mother." 

Accordingly  a  band  of  Keshub's  missionaries  with  some 
attendants  made  a  short  tour  in  Bengal,  preaching  the 
motherhood  of  God,  and  Keshub's  devoted  followers  have 
ever  since  addressed  their  prayers  to  the  Divine  Mother.^ 
This  was  only  the  beginning  of  the  work  entrusted  to  the 
new  prophet. 

Freed  by  the  schism  of  May  1878  from  the  restraining 
influence  of  the  more  practical  and  sober  members  of  the 
Samaj,  and  once  fairly  launched  on  the  sea  of  innovation 
under  the  sway  of  the  spirit  of  religious  mysticism,  there 
was  no  limit  to  the  vagaries  in  which  Keshub  indulged, 
and  to  the  blind  obedience  with  which  some  of  his  adherents 
accepted  his  inspired  dicta.  He  seemed  determined  to 
exemplify  in  his  own  person  the  idea  to  which  he  had 
given  public  expression :  "  That  there  is  something  remark- 
ably irregular  in  the  lives  and  career  of  great  men,  which 
ordinary  facts  and  precedents  cannot  account  for  or  explain. 
.  .  .  Great  men,  like  comets,  move  in  eccentric  orbits." 

Towards  the  end  of  1879,  Keshub's  Sunday  Mirror 
announced  the  advent  of  one  of  those  manifestations  of 
the  divine  will,  which  occur  at  special  times  and  under 
special  circumstances,  when  the  world  is  in  need  of  a 
revival  or  upheaving.  And  the  prophet  himself  followed 
this  announcement  by  proclaiming  to  the  world  in  January 
1880  the  birth  of  the  "  New  Dispensation."  And  what  is 
this  New  Dispensation  ? 

*  "Of  late  it  has  become  customary  to  address  the  Deity  as  Mother." — 
The  Faith  and  Progress  of  the  Brahma  Samaj,  by  P.  C.  Mozoomdar,  p.  394.  In 
this  book,  pp.  394-401,  the  Bengali  feeling  in  respect  to  the  "  Divine  Mater- 
nity" is  well  set  forth  by  one  who  is  both  a  Brahma  and  a  native  of  Bengal. 

i3> 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

"  It  is  the  harmony  of  all  Scriptures  and  Prophets 
and  Dispensations.  It  is  not  an  isolated  creed,  but  the 
science  which  binds  and  explains  and  harmonises  all 
religions.  It  gives  to  history  a  meaning,  to  the  action 
of  Providence  a  consistency,  to  quarrelling  churches  a 
common  bond,  and  to  successive  dispensations  a  con- 
tinuity. It  shows  by  marvellous  synthesis  how  the 
different  rainbow  colours  are  one  in  the  light  of  heaven. 
The  New  Dispensation  is  the  sweet  music  of  diverse 
instruments.  It  is  the  precious  necklace  in  which 
are  strung  together  the  rubies  and  pearls  of  all  ages 
and  climes.  It  is  the  celestial  court  where  around 
enthroned  Divinity  shine  the  lights  of  all  heavenly 
saints  and  prophets.  It  is  the  wonderful  solvent,  which 
fuses  all  dispensations  into  a  new  chemical  compound. 
It  is  the  mighty  absorbent,  which  absorbs  all  that  is 
true  and  good  and  beautiful  in  the  objective  world."  ^ 

Following  this  announcement,  and  within  the  same  year, 
Keshub  Chunder's  organ,  the  Sunday  Mirror,  gave,  as  a 
Bengali  Brahman  remarked,  "the  following  certificate  of 
good  character  to  the  Hindu  religion  "  :  ^ — 

"  Hindu  idolatry  is  not  to  be  altogether  overlooked 
or  rejected.  As  we  explained  some  time  ago,  it  repre- 
sents millions  of  broken  fragments  of  God,  collect  them 
together  and  you  get  the  individual  Divinity.  To 
believe  in  an  undivided  deity  without  reference  to 
those  aspects  of  His  nature  is  to  believe  in  an  abstract 
God,  and  it  would  lead  us  to  practical  rationalism  and 
infidelity.  If  we  are  to  worship  Him  in  all  His  mani- 
festations we  shall  name  one  attribute  —  Sarswatee, 
another  Lashmi,  another  Mahadeva,  another  Jagadhatri, 
etc.,  and  worship  God  each  day  under  a  new  name, 
that  is  to  say,  in  a  new  aspect." 

Such  teaching  was  assuredly  pure  Hinduism,  and  utterly 
at  variance  with  the  tenets  of  earlier  Brahmaism. 

The  New  Dispensation  having  come  into  the  world  to 
harmonise  conflicting  creeds  and  regenerate  mankind,  must 
have  its  outward  symbol,  its  triumphant  banner,  floating 
proudly  on  the  joyful  air  of  highly  favoured  India. 

^Keshub   Chunder  Sen,    "We    Apostles   of   the  New  Dispensation." 
Lecture  delivered  in  Calcutta  on  the  22nd  January  1881. 

^  Dr.  J.  N.  Bhattacharjee,  M.A.,  D.L.,  Hindu  Castes  a)id  Sects,  p.  168. 


THEISM  IN  BENGAL 

A  flag  was  therefore  made,  and  formally  consecrated  as 
the  "Banner  of  the  New  Dispensation."  This  emblem  of 
"regenerated  and  saving  theism"  the  new  prophet  him- 
self formed  with  a  yak's  tail,  and  kissed  with  his  own 
inspired  lips.  In  orthodox  Hindu  fashion,  his  missionaries 
— apostles  of  the  New  Dispensation — went  round  it  with 
lights  in  their  hands,  while  his  less  privileged  followers 
respectfully  touched  the  sacred  pole,  and  humbly  bowed 
down  to  it.^  In  a  word,  the  banner  was  worshipped  as 
Hindu  idols  are  worshipped  any  day  in  India.  Carried 
away  by  a  spirit  of  innovation,  anxious  to  keep  himself 
prominently  before  the  world,  and  realising  no  doubt  that 
since  churches  and  sects  do  not  flourish  on  intellectual 
pabulum  only,  certain  mystic  rites  and  gorgeous  ceremonials 
were  necessary  to  the  success  of  the  New  Dispensation, 
Keshub  introduced  into  his  church  various  observances 
which  attracted  a  good  deal  of  attention,  and  did  not 
escape  criticism. 

On  one  occasion  he  went  with  his  disciples  in  procession, 
singing  hymns,  to  a  stagnant  tank  in  Calcutta,  and  made 
believe  that  they  were  in  Palestine,  and  on  the  side  of  the 
flowing  Jordan.  Standing  near  the  tank,  Keshub  said, 
"  Beloved  brethren,  we  have  come  into  the  land  of  the  Jews, 
and  we  are  seated  on  the  bank  of  the  Jordan.  Let  them 
that  have  eyes  see.  Verily,  verily,  here  was  the  Lord  Jesus 
baptized  eighteen  hundred  years  ago.  Behold  the  holy 
waters  wherein  was  the  Son  of  God  immersed." 

Addressing  the  water  before  him,  Keshub  said:  "0 
Thou  Great  Vanina,  Water  of  Life,  Sacred  "Water,  Mighty 
Expanse  of  Sea  and  Oceans  and  Eivers,  we  glorify  thee; 
Thou  art  not  God ;  but  the  Lord  is  in  thee.  .  .  ." 

After  explaining  that  Jesus  plunged  into  the  Jordan 
"because  He  saw  the  water  was  full  of  God,"  Keshub 
anointed  himself  with  oil  after  the  manner  of  the  Bengalis, 
and  immersed  himself  three  times  in  the  water,  saying: 
"  Glory  to  the  Father,  Glory  unto  the  Son,  Glory  unto  the 
Holy  Ghost,"  and  then  took  a  fourth  immersion  to  the  glory 
of  "  Truth,  Wisdom,  and  Joy  in  One." 

^  Pandit  Sevanath  Sastri,  M.  A.,  The  New  Dispensaiion  and  the  SadJiaran 
Brahma  Samaj,  p.  55. 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

We  learn  also  that  Keshub  and  his  disciples  attempted 
to  hold  communion  with  saints  and  prophets  of  the  olden 
time,  upon  whose  works  and  teachings  they  had  been 
pondering  in  retirement  and  solitude. 

On  this  subject  the  following  notice  appeared  in  the 
Sunday  Mirror: — 

"It  is  proposed  to  promote  communion  with 
departed  saints  amongst  the  more  advanced  Brahmos. 
With  a  view  to  achieve  this  object  successfully,  ancient 
prophets  and  saints  will  be  taken  one  after  another  on 
special  occasions  and  made  the  subject  of  close  study, 
meditation,  and  prayer.  Particular  places  also  will  be 
assigned  to  which  the  devotees  will  resort  as  pilgrims. 
There  for  hours  together  they  will  try  to  draw  inspira- 
tion from  particular  saints.  We  believe  a  spiritual 
pilgrimage  to  Moses  will  be  shortly  undertaken.  Only 
earnest  devotees  ought  to  join." 

This  idea  of  the  efficacy  of  contemplation  to  ensure 
communion  with  Deity  or  disembodied  spirits,  is  one  pre- 
eminently and  characteristically  Hindu.  It  is  indeed  the 
Indian  idea  of  Yoga,  which  formed  the  subject  of  Keshub 
Chunder's  latest  writing. 

The  same  year  Keshub  performed  what  is  known  as  the 
Horn  ceremony,  a  sort  of  adoration  of  fire.^  Addressing  the 
flames,  he  said,  "  0  Thou  blazing  Agni  (fire).  Great  are  thou, 
great  among  the  forces  in  creation.  We  shall  honour  thee 
and  magnify  thee  because  of  thy  greatness  and  majesty. 
Thou  art  not  God ;  we  do  not  adore  thee,  but  in  thee  dwells 
the  Lord,"  and  so  on.^ 

Attracted  by  the  mystery  of  the  Eucharist,  the  Brahma 
reformer  seems  also  to  have  adopted  this  rite  in  1881, 
using  rice  and  milk  instead  of  bread  and  wine.  At  an 
earlier  date  he  had,  in  imitation  of  the  practice  of  certain 
worshippers  of  Vishnu,  danced  a  mystic  dance  with  his 
followers,  clad  in  gay  garments  around  the  invisible 
"  Divine  Mother "  in  the  Brahma  Mandir.  Thus  we  have 
both  Hindu  and  Christian  rites  and  ceremonies  alike 
finding  favour  with  the  prophet  of  the  New  Dispensation, 

^  Described  in  Indmn  Life,  Religious  and  Social,  pp,  95-97. 
^  The  New  Dispensation  and  the  Sadharan  Brahma  Samaj,  by  Pandit 
Sevanath  Sastri,  M.A.,  pp.  50-59. 

140 


THEISM   IN   BENGAL 

who  in  adopting  them  of  course  affected  to  give  them  a 
new  spiritual  allegorical  meaning.  As  an  instance  we  may 
cite  the  Horn  ceremony,  which,  in  the  "  Brahma  Samaj  of 
India  represents  burning  the  passions  in  effigy."  ^ 

What  Keshub  was  trying  to  effect — what  at  least  was 
his  ostensible  object  at  this  time  (May  1881) — may  be  judged 
from  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  of  his  to  Professor 
Max  Miiller :  ^ — 

"  The  British  public  ought  to  know  how  the  most 
advanced  type  of  Hinduism  in  India  is  trying  to  absorb 
and  assimilate  the  Christianity  of  Christ,  and  how  it 
is  establishing  and  spreading,  under  the  name  of  the 
New  Dispensation,  a  new  Hinduism,  which  combines 
Yoga  and  Bhakti,  and  also  a  new  Christianity,  which 
blends  together  Apostolical  faith  and  modern  civilisa- 
tion and  science." 

It  may  not  be  irrelevant  to  notice  the  fact  that  in  1880, 
or  prior  to  Keshub's  letter  to  Professor  Max  Miiller,  there 
appeared  an  article  by  Mr.  Edward  White  in  the  Calcutta 
Review,  explaining  Edward  von  Hartmann's  views  in  regard 
to  the  religion  of  the  future,  in  which  the  following  quota- 
tion from  von  Hartmann  appears : — 

"Looking  to  the  course  of  history,  we  find  that 
the  religion  of  the  future  must  be  realised  through  a 
synthesis  of  the  Hindu  and  Judaeo-Christian  phases  of 
religious  thought.  It  must  combine  the  advanteiges  of 
both,  and  thereby  become  capable  of  explaining  both, 
as  a  universal  religion,  such  a  pan-monotheistic  system 
would  be  most  in  conformity  to  reason,  and  the  best 
adapted  to  excite  and  satisfy  the  religious  sentiments. 
It  would  afford  the  strongest  metaphysical  support  to 
ethics,  and  approach  nearest  to  giving  that  which  men 
seek  as  truth  in  religion." 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  not  at  all  improbable  that 
Keshub,  in  introducing  into  his  Church  heterogeneous  rites 
and  ceremonies  borrowed  from  Christianity  and  Hinduism, 
was  actually  deluding  himself  into  the  belief  that  he  was 
uniting  the  two  religions,  and   carrying  into  effect  the 

•  The  Theistic  Bevievj  and  Interpreter  of  1881,  quoted  in  Count  D'Alviella's 
The  CoTUemporary  Evolution  of  Religious  Thought  (1885),  p.  287. 
'  Max  Miiller,  Biographical  Essays,  p.  117. 

I4t 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

glorious  object  of  his  New  Dispensation.  His  rhetorical 
approval  of  Muhammadanism  and  Buddhism,  of  Zoro- 
astrianism  and  the  rest,  began  and  ended  in  mere  words. 
Keshub  was  indeed  a  Hindu  strongly  leavened  with 
Christianity,  and  perhaps,  in  his  earlier  manhood,  not 
without  a  tincture  of  rationalism.  In  his  best  days  he 
was  more  Christian  than  Hindu — in  his  later  life,  more 
Hindu  than  Christian. 

But  consecrated  banners,  musical  processions,  pilgrimages 
to  Jordan,  mystic  dances,  the  adoption  of  rites  and  cere- 
monies from  other  creeds,  had  not  exhausted  the  resources 
or  inventive  powers  of  Keshub  Babu,  who,  with  his  old  love 
for  the  stage  and  stage  effect,  brought  out,  at  the  end  of 
1882,  a  moral  play,  written  by  one  of  his  disciples,  in  which 
the  prevailing  vices  of  young  Bengalis  were  satirised,  and 
the  triumph  of  the  New  Dispensation  dramatically  illus- 
trated. In  this  performance  the  prophet,  as  we  may  well 
call  him,  appeared  behind  the  fooUights  in  his  favourite 
character  of  a  juggler,  and  to  the  delight  of  his  followers 
fashioned  instantaneously  a  single  symbol,  the  symbol  of  the 
New  Dispensation,  out  of  the  cross,  the  crescent,  the  trident 
of  Siva,  and  other  religious  emblems  of  the  older  faiths  of 
the  world, — a  childish  trick  at  best,  the  levity  of  which 
certainly  produces  an  unfavourable  impression  with  respect 
to  Keshub's  wisdom,  and  his  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things. 

Shortly  after  his  performance  on  the  stage,  the  prophet 
of  the  New  Dispensation  gave  his  last  public  lecture  in 
Calcutta,  entitled,  "  Asia's  Message  to  Europe,"  from  which 
it  would  seem  that  he  had  arrived  at  a  more  exalted  opinion 
of  the  divine  mission  entrusted  to  him  than  any  he  had 
held  before.  Out  of  a  cloud  of  pretentious  rhapsody,  con- 
fused thought,  fantastic  theology,  and  misunderstood  history, 
we  gather  that  Keshub  Chunder  accepting,  in  his  own  way, 
the  doctrine  of  the  universal  atonement  of  Christ,  indulged 
the  ambitious  and  Utopian  dream  of  uniting,  under  the 
central  banner  of  the  New  Dispensation,  all  the  religions 
of  the  world,  in  a  purified  form,  but  each  retaining  its  own 
individuality,  each  led  by  its  trusted  chief,  and  each  march- 
ing under  its  respective  Scriptures.  In  other  words  he 
wanted  all  religious  sects  to  become  catholic  in  sentiment, 

142 


THEISM   IN   BENGAL 

to  give  up  sectarianism  and  yet  retain  all  their  own  dis- 
tinctive peculiarities ! 

The  reader  may,  perhaps,  think  that  the  Brahmist  leader 
must  have  meant  something  else,  something  less  impractic- 
able; but  there  is  no  room  for  doubt  about  the  matter. 
The  accomplishment  of  this  task  was,  indeed,  the  special 
mission  entrusted  by  God  to  Keshub  Babu;  it  was  the 
essence  of  the  New  Dispensation,  and  had  been  already 
proclaimed  by  him  to  the  world  in  a  lecture  entitled  "  We 
Apostles  of  the  New  Dispensation,"  and  had  been  reiterated 
in  no  imcertain  terms  by  Keshub's  organ  the  Sunday  Mirror. 
"Our  position,"  said  that  paper,  "is  not  that  truths  are 
to  be  found  in  all  religions,  but  that  all  the  established 
religions  of  the  world  are  true.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
difference  between  the  two  assertions." 

Yes,  indeed,  there  is!  And  a  great  deal  of  difference 
too  between  this  position  and  that  held  by  the  prophet 
himself  fourteen  years  earlier,  when  he  revealed  to  the 
world  the  character  and  constitution  of  the  Church  of  the 
Future.  Many  reformers  have  cherished  the  fond  hope  of 
effecting  a  harmony  of  various  cults  by  persuading  the  fol- 
lowers of  such  faiths  that  the  root-ideas,  the  basal  elements, 
of  their  respective  creeds  are  essentially  identical.  Some- 
thing of  this  kind  seems  to  have  been  in  Keshub's  mind  in 
the  earlier  days  of  his  career,  but  his  ideas  had  undergone 
a  great  change  latterly,  and  grandiose  dreams  of  uniting 
under  one  banner  all  the  religions  of  the  world,  with  little, 
if  any,  modification,  was  the  final  result  of  five-and-twenty 
years  of  his  ministry.  This  was  Keshub's  last  word  to  an 
expectant  world,  and  though  his  aspiration  may  be  impos- 
sible of  realisation,  it  is  so  much  in  keeping  with  Hindu 
conceptions  that  it  invites  further  consideration. 

No  Jew,  Christian,  or  Muslim  could  ever  have  entertained 
Keshub's  idea.  As  each  one  of  these  along  with  his  co- 
religionists is  chosen  of  God  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rest  of 
mankind,  and  has  special  knowledge  of  the  one  and  only 
way  to  propitiate  God  and  attain  heaven,  so  each  one  is 
fiercely  intolerant  of  the  faiths  of  the  other  two,  and  in  a 
milder  degree  of  all  other  religions  also.  Amongst  Chris- 
tians themselves  we  have  experience  of  the  bitter  hostility 

143 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

of  the  various  churches  and  sects  towards  one  another,  and 
with  these  familiar  facts  before  us  may  well  marvel  at  the 
kindly  hope  which  animated  the  Hindu  reformer's  spacious 
dream  of  the  union  of  all  the  faiths  of  the  world  under  the 
banner  of  a  single  Church  universal.  Most  certainly,  as  I 
have  remarked  above,  the  hope  which  Keshub  Chunder 
cherished  could  never  have  occurred  to  the  mind  of  such 
exclusives  as  Jew,  Christian,  or  Muslim,  and  to  the  followers 
of  any  of  these  faiths  must  appear  ridiculous  if  not  impious. 
But  the  Hindu  views  this  matter  from  quite  another  stand- 
point. 

At  the  "Parliament  of  Eeligions"  held  in  Chicago  in 
1893,  the  Bengali  Sadhu  Swami  Vivakananda  said,  "that 
it  was  a  Hindu  principle  to  recognise  all  faiths  as  expressions 
of  truth,  and  that  from  his  earliest  boyhood  he  had  repeated 
a  sacred  text,  used  daily  by  millions  in  India,  which  says 
that  as  the  different  streams  having  theu^  sources  in  different, 
places,  all  mingle  their  water  in  the  sea,  so  the  different 
paths  which  men  take  through  different  tendencies,  various 
though  they  appear,  and  crooked  or  straight,  all  lead  to  the 
one  Lord."  ^ 

And  in  the  Bhagavad-gita,  Krishna,  as  the  Supreme 
Being,  says  to  Arjuna :  "  They  also  who  worship  other  gods 
and  make  offering  to  them  with  faith,  0  son  of  Kunti,  do 
verily  make  ofi'ering  to  me,  though  not  according  to  ordi- 
nance,"— a  transcendently  lofty  conception,  which  fortu- 
nately for  humanity  is  now  finding  an  echo  in  European 
and  American  thought.  The  Hindu,  it  is  true,  does  not 
regard  all  modes  of  worship  as  equally  admirable  or 
efficacious,  but  he  deems  them  all  worthy  of  sympathetic 
countenance  as  being  natural  aspirations  towards  the 
Infinite  God;  and  his  sincerity  is  amply  exemplified  in 
the  growth  by  accretion,  and  the  heterogeneous  constitution, 
of  his  own  religious  system,  as  we  find  it  in  the  Hinduism 
of  the  present  day. 

Keshub's  dream  then  was  quite  in  harmony  with  Hindu 
ideals ;  but  in  utter  discord  with  the  pretensions  and  aims 
of  the  more  exclusive  and  intolerant  religions  of  the  world. 
That  there  will  ever  be  one  universal  world-religion,  or  even 

^  The  World's  Parliament  of  Religions,  vol.  i.  pp.  242,  243. 
144 


THEISM  IN  BENGAL 

a  happy  union  of  all  the  faiths  of  mankind  under  a  common 
banner,  is  a  vain  hope ;  but  time  and  an  increase  of  know- 
ledge, especially  of  the  science  of  comparative  religion,  will 
assuredly  promote  amongst  intellectual  men  in  advanced 
nations  a  hitherto  unknown  religious  toleration,  not  con- 
temptuous but  sympathetic. 

What  Keshub  did  accomplish,  we  need  hardly  say,  was 
something  very  different  from  what  he  hoped  for.  He,  who 
was  always  protesting  against  sectarianism,  added,  as  if  by 
the  irony  of  fate,  one  more  sect,  one  more  rehgion  if  you 
like,  to  the  hundreds  already  existing,  weaving  into  the 
ceremonial  law  of  the  new  society,  rites  and  symbols 
borrowed  without  any  sense  of  historical  fitness  or  tra- 
ditional propriety  from  both  Hinduism  and  Christianity, 
under  the  belief,  it  would  seem,  that  by  so  doing  an 
amalgamation  of  these  creeds  was  being  effected  under 
the  banner  of  the  New  Dispensation.  At  the  same  time 
Keshub's  fervent  admiration  of  Christ's  life  and  work,  and 
his  eloquent  confession  of  devotion  to  Jesus,  has  probably 
made  a  deeper  impression  upon  his  countrymen  than  the 
preaching  of  a  multitude  of  foreign  missionaries  could  ever 
have  done,  although  it  cannot  be  denied  that  these  foreign 
Christian  missionaries  created  the  moral  atmosphere  that 
gave  birth  to  a  desire  for  a  pure  form  of  worship,  and  made 
Brahmaism  possible. 

Within  a  few  months  of  the  date  of  his  lecture  "Asia's 
Message  to  Europe,"  already  referred  to,  the  Brahma  leader 
died,  on  the  8th  January  1884  His  body  was  laid  on  a 
pyre  of  sandal-wood  at  the  Nimtollah  Burning  Ghat,  in  the 
presence  of  a  large  concourse  of  persons,  including  some 
Europeans.  As  the  sun  was  setting,  Karvana  Chunder  Sen, 
eldest  son  of  the  deceased,  ignited  the  pyre,  uttering  these 
words:  "In  the  name  of  God  I  convey  the  sacred  fire  to 
these  last  remains.  Let  the  mortal  part  bum  and  perish : 
the  immortal  part  will  revive.  0  Lord,  the  liberated  soul 
rejoices  in  thee  in  thy  blessed  abode."  The  prophet's  ashes, 
collected  in  an  urn,  were  carried  away,  and  interred  in 
the  little  chapel  adjoining  his  residence,  known  as  Lily 
Cottage. 

The  ceremony  of  mourning  for  the  dead  to  be  observed 
K  145 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

by  his  followers  was    thus    prescribed    by   the   Apostolic 
Durbar : 

"All  who  have  taken  to  mourning  for  the  late 
Babu  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  are  enjoined  by  the 
Apostolic  Durhar  of  the  New  Dispensation,  to  observe 
it  for  a  fortnight  in  the  following  manner : — 

"  (1)  Every  true  believer  in  the  New  Dispensation 
shall  wear  on  his  person  a  piece  of  gairu  cloth,  striped 
in  the  manner  prescribed  in  the  New  Sanhita. 

"  (2)  He  shall  abstain  from  animal  food. 

"(3)  He  shall  give  up  all  manner  of  mirth  and 
merriment. 

"(4)  He  shall  study  the  life  and  teachings  of  the 
minister. 

"(5)  He  shall  pray  for  the  descent  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  practise  communion  daily  with  the  view 
to  realise  the  presence  of  the  Divine  Mother,  with 
Her  child,  the  minister,  on  Her  lap. 

"(6)  He  shall  try  to  assimilate  the  niinister's 
character  in  his  life  with  his  daily  food. 

"  (7)  He  shall  hold  conversation  with  friends  every 
evening  on  spiritual  topics." 

On  the  anniversary  of  his  death  the  Brahma  Tract 
Society  sold  their  publications  at  half-price  to  commemo- 
rate the  ascension  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen.  The  death  of 
the  reformer  called  forth  a  great  many  appreciative  articles 
on  his  life  and  character  in  the  magazines  and  newspapers 
of  the  day.  Professor  Max  Miiller,  writing  on  the  occasion, 
gave  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  "  the  first  place  among  his  fellow- 
countrymen,  and  a  pre-eminent  place  among  the  best  of 
mankind." 

"  On  more  than  one  occasion,"  observed  Count  D'Alviella, 
"  I  have  severely  condemned  his  acts,  and  almost  despaired 
of  his  future.  But  whenever  I  turned  to  his  discourses  and 
writings,  I  again  fell  in  some  measure  under  the  charm  which 
arose  from  liis  personality  and  genius."  ^ 

Although  an  admiring  countryman  believes  Keshub  to 

have  been  "  one  of  the  greatest  thinkers,  one  of  the  greatest 

philosophers,  and  one  of  the  greatest  men  of   the  world," 

I  feel  bound  to  say  that  he  was  none  of  these,  but  a  pious 

*  The  Contemporary  Emlvtiion  of  Religious  Thought,  p.  284. 

146 


THEISM  IN  BENGAL 

liiystic,  endowed  with  a  rare  gift  of  expression,  a  marked 
individuality,  a  strong  will,  not  a  little  worldly  wisdom 
and  a  charm  of  manner  which  gave  him  a  great  ascendancy 
over  the  men  with  whom  he  came  in  contact. 

There  was  one  thing  that  Keshub  believed  in,  and  was 
never  tired  of  teaching  with  all  the  glowing  eloquence  of 
a  really  gifted  man — the  immanence  of  the  Creator.  To 
Keshub,  God  was  the  ever-present  sustainer  of  the  universe 
an  all-pervading  Presence,  the  very  life  of  the  world. 
He  tries  to  keep  before  himself  and  his  hearers  the  idea 
of  a  personal  God,  but  the  vision  seems  to  elude  him ;  he 
slides  almost  unconsciously  into  pantheism,  which  after 
all  is  the  natural  and  hereditary  creed  of  India.  With 
his  fervent  piety  and  passionate  admiration  of  Jesus,  which 
seems  to  have  coloured  his  entire  life,  he  might  possibly, 
under  other  circumstances,  have  become  a  Christian,  but 
he  came  to  believe,  sincerely  perhaps,  that  he  was  himself 
entrusted  by  God  with  a  divine  mission.  His  confidence 
in  himself  was  so  great  that  men  believed  in  him.  His 
knowledge  was  apparently  very  limited,  but  his  imagina- 
tion was  strong.  He  liked  to  make  allusions  to  physical 
science,  and  always  spoke  with  deference  and  approval  of 
the  work  accomplished  by  scientists.  He  himself  had  a 
short  cut  to  knowledge.  He  saw,  he  felt,  and  thus  he 
knew,  and  what  he  knew  he  proclaimed. 

In  the  later  years  of  his  ministry  the  Brahma  Church 
of  the  New  Dispensation  was  gradually  developed  into  a 
distinct  rehgion.  It  was  no  longer  Hindu  theism  nor  pure 
theism,  but  a  new  and  very  latitudinarian  religion  dating 
from  the  nineteenth  century.  A  religion  of  sentiment, 
mysterious  and  ritualistic,  with  a  strong  leaning  towards 
pantheism  and  Yogaism,  admirably  suited  to  the  dreamy 
temperament  of  the  Indian  people,  and  in  harmony  with 
their  past  rehgious  development. 

Hardly  had  the  earth  closed  over  Keshub's  ashes,  when 
jealousies  and  rivalries  disturbed  the  Brahma  camp.  The 
first  cause  of  dissension  was  the  Vedi,  or  marble  pulpit  in 
the  Mandir,  which  the  family  of  the  deceased  and  several 
of  the  Brahma  missionaries  desired  to  set  apart  in  memory 
of  the  prophet,  whose  spirit  was  supposed  to  occupy  the 

147 


fekAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   iNDlA 

accustomed  place  in  the  congregation  of  the  faithful.  On 
the  other  side,  Babu  Protab  Chunder  Mozoomdar,  the 
secretary  to  the  congregation,  protested  against  the  proposal 
as  being  contrary  to  rules  and  principles  laid  down  by 
Keshub  himself;  but,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  pulpit, 
despite  his  remonstrances,  remains  empty  to  this  day  in 
memory  of  the  prophet. 

With  time,  disagreement  and  strife  became  so  rife 
amongst  the  leaders  of  the  Church  of  the  New  Dispensa- 
tion that  in  1901  Babu  Suresh  Chunder  Bose  issued  a 
public  appeal  to  the  followers  of  the  late  reformer,  exhort- 
ing them  to  support  Babu  Protab  Chunder  Mozoomdar, 
"  who,"  said  this  advocate,  "  is  verily  our  Minister,  though 
his  missionary  brethren  by  disputing  the  fact  have  wrecked 
the  church."  Mozoomdar,  who  seems  to  have  been  a  man 
of  great  earnestness  and  piety,  visited  England  in  1874, 
and  .again  in  1883  on  his  way  to  attend  the  "  Parliament 
of  Religions  "  at  Chicago,  where  he  represented  the  Brahma 
Samaj,  spoke  on  several  occasions,  and  created  a  favourable 
impression.  He  had  been  Keshub's  companion  and  friend 
since  their  college  days,  and  always  expressed  the  highest 
admiration  of  the  founder  of  the  Church  of  the  New 
Dispensation.  Under  his  guidance  the  Samaj  seems  to 
have  gradually  drifted  towards  American  Unitarianism,  and 
to  have  been  supported,  in  no  slight  degree,  by  funds  from 
the  United  States  of  America,  On  this  point  the  following 
appeared  in  the  Civil  and  Military  Gazette  of  Lahore  on 
the  18th  of  May  1895  :— 

"  The  fact  that  Baboo  Protab  Chunder  Mozoomdar, 
the  distinguished  Brahmo  missionary,  who  has  visited 
Lahore  many  times  on  a  missionary  tour,  is  now 
dependent  on  his  American  friends  for  the  support 
of  his  mission-work  and  himself,  has  caused  surprise 
only  to  those  who  are  ignorant  of  the  dissensions  and 
disputes  that  now  obtain  in  the  section  of  the  Brahmo 
Church  to  which  Mr.  Mozoomdar  belongs.  In  fact, 
the  Brahmos  of  the  New  Dispensation  are  now  divided 
into  half  a  dozen  small  parties,  or  rather  coteries,  of 
one  of  which  Mr.  Mozoomdar  is  the  recognised  leader. 
He  himself  is  not  a  man  of  means,  and  his  followers 
are  too  poor  to  help  him.  When  Mr.  Mozoomdar 
148 


THEISM   IN   BENGAL 

visited  America  as  representative  of  the  Brahmo  Samaj 
to  the  Chicago  Parliament  of  Eeligions,  his  American 
admirers  proposed  to  start  a  fund  in  aid  of  his  mission 
work,  and  this  proposal  has  now  been  carried  out,  and 
from  the  '  Mozoomdar  Mission  Fund '  in  New  York 
the  Brahmo  missionary  is  in  receipt  of  an  annual 
allowance.  Mr.  Mozoomdar's  supporters  in  America 
are  all  Christians,  chiefly  of  the  Unitarian  persuasion, 
who  evidently  regard  him  as  one  of  themselves.  The 
Brahmo  missionary's  well-known  work  entitled  Oi'iental 
Christ,  is  the  cause  of  his  popularity  among  the 
ministers  of  the  Unitarian  Church  in  America." 

On  the  27th  May  1905,  Mozoomdar  died  at  Calcutta, 
and  in  announcing  his  death  the  Indian  Review  remarked : 

"  Of  recent  years  it  has  been  growing  more  and 
more  apparent  that  the  hold  which  the  Brahmo  Samaj 
had  on  the  mind  of  a  considerable  section  of  educated 
Indians  during  the  lifetime  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen, 
and  even  for  some  time  later,  has  been  steadily 
decreasing,  and  it  is  to  be  apprehended  that  the 
death  of  two  such  leaders  like  Devendranath  and 
Mozoomdar  leaves  it  in  a  poor  plight  indeed,  seeing 
that,  among  the  younger  men,  there  are  none  who 
can  fill  the  positions  occupied  by  them  in  the  eye  of 
the  public  as  well  as  regards  the  affairs  of  the  Samaj 
with  anything  like  success." 

Since  Keshub's  death  there  has  been  a  tendency  towards 
the  establishment  of  friendly  relations  between  the  different 
sections  of  the  Brahmic  Church,  which  was  not  possible 
during  the  lifetime  of  the  prophet  of  the  New  Dispensa- 
tion. I  have  before  me  the  report  (February  1896  to 
February  1905)  of  the  "Brahmo  Samaj  Committee,"  in 
which  all  three  Samajes  are  found  co-operating  with  one 
another  and  with  Unitarian  Societies  in  England  in  philan- 
thropic work  in  India,  the  funds  for  such  work  being 
nearly  all  derived  from  England.  This  arrangement  shows 
the  subtle  potency  of  gold  even  in  such  an  unlikely 
enterprise  as  the  drawing  together  of  hostile  sects,  and 
it  reveals  moreover  the  first  steps  of  the  inevitable 
ascendancy,  in  the  perhaps  not  distant  future,  of  the 
English  and  American  Unitarians  in  the  Brahmic  Churches. 

149 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

This,  for  aught  I  know,  may  be  for  the  best ;  but  however 
commendable  a  spirit  of  mutual  toleration  and  fellowship 
between  the  different  sections  of  the  Brahma  Samajes  may 
be,  the  existence  of  such  feelings  amongst  sectaries  holding 
very  divergent  views  on  essential  matters,  seems  only  possible 
as  the  result  of  an  increasing  lukewarmness,  and,  if  so,  the 
beginning  of  the  end  of  Brahmaism  as  a  distinctive  Indian 
institution  cannot  be  very  far  off. 

We  have  followed  the  history  of  the  Brahmic  movement 
from  its  beginning  under  Eam  Mohun  Eoy  to  its  latest 
developments,  and  it  is  but  just  to  add  that  the  succession 
of  extraordinarily  capable  and  exemplary  men  who  have 
guided  the  fortunes  of  the  sect  in  its  various  branches 
would  reflect  great  credit  upon  any  community  whether 
in  the  East  or  the  West,  their  lives  and  teaching  bearing 
striking  testimony  to  the  high  intellectual  vigour  and  moral 
excellence  which  can  be  found  amongst  the  Bengalis,  a 
race  only  too  frequently  and  too  hastily  condemned  by 
Europeans. 


150 


THEISM  IN  BENGAJ^-continued 

Section  VII. — Sonunary  and  C!onclusion, 

5P  EOM  the  foregoing  brief  sketch  of  the  history 
of  the  Brahma  Samaj,  it  is  evident  that  the 
seeds  of  his  subsequent  theistic  doctrines  were 
first  planted  in  the  mind  of  Bam  Mohun 
Koy  by  his  studies  in  Muslim  literature  and 
theology. 

Discovering  later  that  his  new  ideas  were  at  least  not 
at  variance  with  interpretations  that  might  be  put  upon 
certain  texts  scattered  through  the  ancient  Hindu  Scriptures, 
he,  a  Hindu  and  a  Brahman,  naturally  leaned  for  support 
upon  these  national  authorities,  and  taught  a  pure  theism, 
claiming  to  rest  upon  the  sanction  of  the  Vedas,  but  borrowing 
ideas  in  no  small  measure  from  Christianity,  of  which  he 
had  made  a  careful  and  diligent  study.  Under  Debendra 
Nath  Tagore,  however,  the  sect  founded  by  Eam  Mohun 
Roy,  hard  pressed  on  every  side  by  the  criticisms  of  the 
orthodox  Hindus  and  others,  reluctantly  gave  up  their 
profession  of  faith  in  the  Vedas  as  the  authority  for  the 
theistic  doctrines  which  they  held,  but  with  the  conservative 
spirit  so  natural  to  the  followers  of  an  old  religion,  they 
continued  to  cling  with  tenacity  to  the  sacred  Scriptures  of 
their  country,  and,  with  an  amiable  inconsistency,  prepared 
for  themselves  a  religious  text-book  by  culling  passages 
from  works  whose  divine  authority  they  had  ceased  to 
maintain.  While  renouncing  idolatry,  they  adhered  as 
closely  as  possible  to  the  rules  and  customs  of  Hinduism. 
And  this  is  still  the  position  and  attitude  of  the  Adi  Brahma 
Samaj. 

With  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  new  principles  of  thought 
and  action  were  brought  into  play,  giving,  at  first,  a  quite 

i5i 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

distinct  and  un-Hindu  direction  to  the  current  of  doctrines 
and  events.  At  one  time  he  seems  indeed  to  have  been 
in  reality  only  an  advanced  Christian  Unitarian,  holding 
opinions  identical  with  those  professed  by  thousands  of 
that  sect  in  England  and  America.  Later  on  he  began  to 
believe  that  he  was  himself  entrusted  with  a  special  divine 
mission — the  reconciling  of  all  the  existing  forms  of  reUgion. 
As  time  went  by  he  drifted  further  and  further  away  from 
his  old  opinions,  and,  still  chnging  to  "  the  Asiatic  Christ " 
as  a  raft  of  safety,  floated  into  the  deep  and  tranquil  waters 
of  his  own  national  mysticism  and  pantheism.  But  the 
voice  of  the  restless  nineteenth  century,  calling  for  deeds, 
demanding  results,  would  not  let  the  prophet  lose  himself 
in  the  ecstatic  Yogaism  into  which  he  was  now  sinking. 
Roused  by  the  voices  of  his  friends  and  enemies,  the  prophet 
rushed  into  action  with  feverish  excitement,  waved  aloft 
the  banner  of  the  New  Dispensation,  transformed  into  one 
device  the  symbols  (alas,  the  symbols  only !)  of  contending 
creeds,  paraded  the  streets  with  flags  and  music,  danced 
mystic  dances  in  the  Mandir,  adopted  some  of  the  more 
prominent  features  and  ceremonies  of  an  alien  creed,  and 
finally  passed  away  leaving  behind  him  a  disorganised  sect 
and  a  place  of  worship  of  mixed  European  and  Oriental 
architecture,  adorned,  or  perhaps  disfigured,  with  tablets, 
pictures,  and  statues  copied  from  other  churches,  and  let  in 
haphazard  into  the  walls  of  the  new  structure. 

As  the  result  of  seventy-five  years  of  theistic  agitation 
and  preaching  developed  from  the  germ  originally  planted 
by  Ram  Mohun  Roy,  we  have  at  the  present  day — 

1.  A  sect  of  Hindu  theists — the  Adi  Brahma  Samaj ; 

2.  A  sect  of  non-Hindu  theists — the  Sadharan  Brahma 

Samaj,  who  take  reason  and  conscience  as  their 
guide;  and 

3.  The  sect  of  the  New  Dispensation,  strongly  Hindu  in 

its  spirit  and  leanings,  but  practically  believers 
in  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  as  an  inspired  teacher  or 
prophet. 

The  original  sect  of  Ram  Mohun  Roy  is  quite  extinct, 
the  Adi  Brahma  Samaj  of  Debendra  Nath  Tagore  is  in  a 

152 


THEISM   IN   BENGAL 

stationary  condition ;  but  the  two  younger  Samajes  still 
show  signs  of  vitality  and  the  spirit  of  propagandism.  The 
numerical  results  of  the  entire  movement,  from  which  so 
much  was  expected  and  which  has  been  watched  with  such 
keen  interest  in  India  and  outside  India,  are  quite  insig- 
nificant, since  only  4050  persons  returned  themselves  as 
Brahmas  when  the  last  census  of  India  was  taken  in  1901. 
The  indirect  results  of  the  movement  will  be  referred  to  in 
a  subsequent  page. 

In  considering,  as  we  may  now  do,  how  far  the  political 
conditions  prevailing  in  the  British  Indian  Empire  are 
favourable,  or  otherwise,  to  the  establishment  of  a  new 
religion  capable  of  comparing  in  numbers  and  influence  with 
the  old-established  faiths,  we  have  to  bear  in  mind  that 
the  cessation  of  all  internal  warfare,  the  recognised  liberty 
of  thought  and  complete  freedom  of  expression  enjoyed  by 
all  religious  denominations,  the  facilities  for  rapid  inter- 
communication afforded  by  railways,  and  the  possession  of 
a  common  language — English — by  all  educated  natives 
throughout  the  country,  make  the  quick  and  extensive 
propagation  of  new  ideas  an  easy  matter,  and  give  the 
greatest  encouragement  and  scope  to  that  widespread 
missionary  enterprise,  which  forms  a  remarkable  feature  of 
the  Brahmic  and  other  religious  movements  of  the  time. 
The  common  subjection  to  an  alien  government  gives  rise 
to  a  sense  of  fellowship  amongst  the  subject  races,  and 
encourages  a  feeling  of  fraternity,  beneath  which,  as  in 
Keshub's  doctrine  of  the  "Fatherhood  of  God,  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man,"  we  can  detect  the  underlying  idea  of 
the  equality  of  all  men,  that  is  of  conquerors  and  conquered 
alike.  The  advantages  just  referred  to,  which  are  not  confined 
to  any  one  sect,  and  the  bonds  of  union,  more  sentimental 
•perhaps  than  real,  amongst  the  educated  classes,  are  not,  how- 
ever, sufficient  to  encourage  the  expectation  of  the  establish- 
ment in  India  of  a  new  religion  on  an  extended  scale  in  face 
of  the  deep-rooted,  time-honoured  religions  which  already 
occupy  the  ground,  particularly  as  the  wisdom  and  policy  of 
the  British  Government  preclude  the  idea  of  persecution  of 
any  kind,  and  new  religious  movements  in  India  are  likely 
to  lack  that  fanaticism  amongst  the  leaders,  that  loyalty 

153 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

and  obedience  amongst  the  followers,  and  that  thorough 
organisation  in  the  whole  body  which  arise  out  of  the 
presence  of  a  common  and  pressing  danger.  Whether  any 
form  of  Brahmaism  will  be  found  sufficient  for  the  spiritual 
needs  of  a  considerable  portion  of  the  Indian  population, 
and  whether  the  usual  miraculous  legends  which  accrete 
round  the  early  history  of  religious  movements,  will  make 
their  appearance  in  connection  with  the  initial  struggles  of 
any  of  the  Brahmic  Churches,  time  will  show.  But  it  may 
be  safely  predicted  that  unless  such  legends  do  spring  up 
and  flourish  vigorously,  the  Brahma  reformation  will  not 
give  rise  to  any  new  and  popular  religion  in  India. 

The  austere  tenets  of  the  Sadharan  Brahma  Samaj 
preclude  any  such  possibility  in  connection  with  that  sect. 
But  the  Maharshi  Debendra  Nath  might  well  become  the 
semi-divine  centre  of  a  future  Hindu  sect  of  importance ; 
and  in  Keshub's  case  the  circumstances  are  more  favourable 
and  the  probabilities  of  legendary  developments  still  greater. 
Indeed,  it  seems  to  me  that  should  it  come  to  pass,  when  the 
haze  of  years  casts  a  dim  veil  over  the  personality  of  the 
prophet,  that  his  followers  pay  him  divine  honours  as  some 
have  doiie  already,  then  a  Keshuhite  religion  may  attain  a 
vigorous  growth  and  possibly  endure  when  the  other  Brahma 
sects  have  either  been  completely  reabsorbed  into  Hinduism, 
or  been  refined  into  some  one  or  other  of  the  forms  of 
Unitarianism  or  Eationalism  established  in  Europe  or 
America. 

Socially  considered,  the  Brahmic  movement  in  its  later 
developments  is  of  importance,  as  it  encourages  the  disso- 
lution of  the  barriers  of  caste,  staunchly  and  practically 
encourages  the  remarriage  of  widows,  and  makes  it  a 
professed  object  to  raise  the  intellectual  status  and  improve 
the  social  position  of  Indian  women  by  giving  them  a 
freedom  which  the  orthodox  party  would  not  for  a  moment 
countenance.  And  as  I  write  this  I  call  to  mind  how  years 
ago  the  leader  of  the  Sadharan  Brahma  Samaj  at  Lahore 
pointed  out  to  me  the  adult  unmarried  ladies  of  his  house- 
hold, walking  about  unveiled  in  the  gardens  of  beautiful 
Shalamar.  The  party  of  ladies  was  certainly  not  attended 
by  members  of  the  opposite  sex,  and  probably  before  the 

154 


THEISM   IN   BENGAL 

complete  emancipation  of  the  Hindu  female  from  the 
seclusion  of  the  zenana  can  be  safely  carried  out,  and  free 
social  intercourse  between  the  sexes  allowed,  "the  moral 
tone  of  native  society,"  as  Babu  Shib  Chunder  Bose  has 
remarked,  "must  be  immensely  raised,  its  manners  and 
customs  entirely  remodelled,  and  its  traditional  institutions 
and  prescriptive  usages  thoroughly  purified."  ^  But  the  fact 
that  the  gentleman  I  refer  to  had  the  courage  to  have  adidt 
unmarried  daughters,  and  to  allow  them  to  go  about 
unveiled,  proves  sufficiently  that  the  views  and  opinions 
of  the  Brahmas  are  not  merely  theoretical,  but  actually 
afiect  their  habits  and  customs. 

Of  course  social  reforms  cannot  be  carried  out  without 
opposition  and  reviling,  and  I  have  heard  orthodox  Hindus 
affirm  that  the  Brahma  sects  were  chiefly  recruited  from 
amongst  men  who  were  of  low  caste,  or  had  through  some 
cause  or  other  lost  social  position,  that,  in  fact,  those  who 
now  give  their  warm  support  to  the  Brahmic  movement  are 
just  such  as  a  generation  ago  would  most  probably  have 
been  driven  into  the  arms  of  Christianity. 

One  most  important  aspect  of  the  religious  situation 
remains  to  be  noticed.  I  refer  to  the  paiverful  reaction  in 
favour  of  Hinduism  created  by  a  spirit  of  opposition  to 
Christian  and  Brahmic  teaching,  and  strongly  stimulated  by 
the  political  discontent  of  recent  years. 

"  There  was  a  time,"  says  an  Indian  journal,  "  when 
Brahmoism  was  regarded  to  be  the  only  possible 
religion  for  every  educated  Hindu,  who  was  eager  to 
be  loyal  to  his  conscience.  The  untenableness  of 
idolatry,  judged  from  the  liberated  intellectual  and 
spiritual  standpoint  of  every  man  of  culture,  was 
made  so  clear  and  unmistakable  by  the  labours  of 
the  Brahmo  Samaj,  that  it  was  a  disgrace  to  be  an 
idolater.  Unhappily  this  healthy  public  opinion  has 
not  lasted.  In  direct  opposition  to  the  teachings  of 
the  Hindu  Shastras,  which  set  down  idolatry  as  only 
a  low  form  of  worship,  fit  only  for  the  ignorant  and  the 
uncultured,  a  new  cult  has  been  founded  which  openly 
and  defiantly  dignifies  idolatry  into  the  only  possible 
and  practical  form  of  rehgious  worship,  easily  exciting 

'  Shib  Chunder  Bose,  Tlie  Hindoos  as  they  are,  p.  7. 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

true  religious  emotion  and  developing  genuine  Bhakti 
or  divine  love.  Again,  there  is  another  section  of  our 
educated  countr3'men  who  uphold  Adwaitism,  or  the 
philosophical  Pantheism  of  Sankaracharya. 

"  The  reasoned  idolatry  and  the  abstract  pantheism 
of  the  day  which  count  among  their  votaries  a  large 
proportion  of  those  Hindus  of  education  and  culture 
whom  the  Brahmo  Samaj  at  one  time  hoped  to  attract 
to  its  fold,  constitute  the  two  prominent  modes  of 
rampart  religious  thought  which  it  has  at  present  to 
combat."  ^ 

The  reaction  referred  to  in  the  passage  just  cited  is  not 
a  mere  revival  of  the  old  Hinduism.  The  awakened  mind  of 
educated  India  will  never  revert  to  the  veritable  past,  but 
will  find  temporary  satisfaction  for  its  religious  needs  in 
a  reformed  but  progressive  Hinduism,  modified  in  many 
respects,  but  always  haunted  and  even  dominated  by  its 
essential  old-time  ideals. 

With  respect  to  the  spiritual  influence  of  the  Brahmic 
Church,  it  doubtless  extends  far  beyond  the  limits  of  its 
own  professed  adherents ;  but  we  need  to  guard  ourselves 
against  an  exaggerated  idea  of  the  importance  of  this  new 
religious  and  social  reformation,  which,  after  all,  represents 
only  one  of  the  many  results  produced  by  Western  thought 
acting  upon  the  mind  of  India.  Another  and  very  necessary 
caution  to  be  borne  in  mind  is  that  the  glowing  narratives 
of  Brahma  successes,  of  religious  awakenings,  of  passion- 
ate zeal  and  so  forth,  which  may  come  from  interested 
parties,  should  not  be  accepted  too  literally.  "  What  we 
wrote  did  not  represent  what  we  did.  Our  writings  ex- 
ceeded our  lives,"  was  the  confession  which  Keshub  once 
made  in  a  letter  to  Miss  Collet,  and  would  in  all  probability 
be  appropriate  in  the  mouths  of  most  Brahma  writers  and 
statisticians. 

The  attitude  of  Brahmaism  to  Christianity  is  a  subject 
of  great  interest  to  many  earnest  men.  At  one  time  the 
Christian  missionaries  appeared  to  think  that  Keshub  was 
doing  their  work  for  them,  and  that  the  reformer  himself 
would  eventually  come  into  the  Christian  fold.  This  was  one 
reason  why  he  was  made  so  much  of  by  Europeans  of  all 

■  Tattwahodhini  PatriJm,  vol.  xv.  part  i. 
156 


Theism  in  bengal 

classes.  Even  now  some  Christian  missionaries  regard 
Bi-ahmaism  as  but  a  step  on  the  road  to  Christianity,  but  I 
am  by  no  means  of  that  opinion. 

Whatever  may  be  the  modifications  produced  in  Indian 
ways  of  thought  and  in  the  sentiments  and  customs  of  the 
people,  by  the  stimulating  contact  of  Western  literature, 
philosophy,  science,  and  religion,  it  may  be  safely  predicted 
that  the  inherited  tendencies  of  the  people  of  India  are  too 
strong,  and  their  national  beliefs  too  subtle,  comprehensive, 
and  deep-rooted,  to  allow  of  their  breaking  away  in  any 
notable  degree  from  their  immemorial  past.  Under  existing 
political  conditions  at  any  rate  the  religious  evolution  of 
the  vast  Hindu  population  will,  I  believe,  take  place  along 
the  already  long-estabhshed  lines  of  pantheism  and  yoga 
philosophy. 

Brahmaism  as  a  national  theistic  Church  may,  in  one 
form  or  another,  possibly  have  a  future;  but  if  foreign 
Unitarians,  whether  English  or  American,  succeed  in  im- 
posing their  austere  occidental  views  upon  any  considerable 
proportion  of  the  Brahmas,  and,  aided  by  their  money-bags, 
are  able  to  assume  the  guidance  of  the  Brahmic  movement, 
it  will  acquire  an  exotic  character,  become  unpopular,  and 
inevitably  die  of  inanition. 


157 


SOCIAL  *- 

REirORM  -^ 


tme:- PUBLIC -Houdc:-  "^ 

158 


CHAPTER  IV 

HINDU  SOCIAL 
REFOKMERS 

Introduction,  — 
Forces  in  opera- 
tion tending  to 
bring  about 
changes  in  Hindu 
social  life. 

0  many  stimulat- 
ing forces  of 
extraneous 
origin,  such 
various  cul- 
ture-influences 
have  come  into 
operation 
throughout  the 
land,  so  many 
novel  ideas  are 
circulating  there, 
so  much  criticism 
sometimes  just, 
sometimes  super- 
cilious and  too 
often  foolish,  has 
for  many  years 
past  been  lav- 
ished upon  the 
Indian  social 
fabric,  whether 
Hindu  or  Mus- 
lim, that  a  crowd 
of  reformers  both 
wise  and  unwise 
have,  as  an  in- 
evitable     conse- 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

quence,  come  into  existence.  For  men  who  love  notoriety, 
for  speakers  who  desire  to  advertise  themselves  and  are 
fairly  pushing  and  thick-skinned,  the  role  of  the  reformer 
is  everywhere  a  congenial  one,  and  present-day  India  has, 
perhaps,  more  than  a  fair  share  of  such  men.  Besides 
these  fussy  self-seekers,  there  are  others  of  another  and 
better  type,  reasonably  anxious  for  moderate  changes  in 
Hindu  social  customs  to  suit  the  altered  times,  and  modestly 
doing  what  they  can  within  their  limited  sphere  to  accom- 
plish this  end. 

Europeans,  impatient  of  the  political  aspirations  of  the 
Hindu  people,  direct  attention  to  the  wide  field  for  urgent 
social  reforms  which  Indian  society  provides,  and  in  their 
zeal  for  the  improvement  of  their  "  fellow-subjects "  these 
well-wishers  indulge  in  highly  coloured  contrasts  between 
Western  and  Eastern  customs,  necessarily  to  the  disadvantage 
of  both  Hindus  and  Muslims.  Naturally  the  restrictions 
imposed  by  caste  afford  convenient  texts  for  these  alien 
reformers,  and  give  occasion  for  much  ill  -  considered 
speaking  and  writing  addressed  to  the  Indian  native  public. 
To  give  examples :  The  other  day  I  found  it  stated  or  rather 
implied  in  a  reputable  Calcutta  newspaper,  desirous  of  im- 
proving native  social  arrangements,  that  Englishmen  may 
marry  where  they  please,  and  eat  where  and  how  they 
pleeise;  while  the  trained  official,  freeing  himself  for  the 
nonce  from  the  trammels  of  red-tape,  lays  it  down  with 
authority,  in  a  State  document  too,  that,  "  In  the  West 
the  field  from  which  a  man  can  choose  his  wife  is 
practically  unlimited."  (Census  Keport,  p.  421.)  But  is 
all  this  quite  true  ?  Is  the  ordinary  Englishman  really 
so  blessed  ?  Is  he  so  absolutely  free  ?  Without  losing 
sight  of  the  disabilities  due  to  the  Hindu  caste  system, 
we  may  be  permitted  to  ask  whether  the  Englishman,  be 
he  Hodge,  or  John  Smith,  or  Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere,  or  the 
Marquis  of  Landsend,  can  marry  into  any  class  he  likes  ? 
Whether  his  chance  in  matrimony  (not  always  his  choice) 
is  not  ordinarily  confined  simply  and  absolutely  to  such 
women  of  his  own  class,  within  the  small  circle  of  his 
personal  acquaintances,  as  may  be  disposed  to  accept  his 
advances  ?     We  may  press  the  matter  further  and  inquire 

159 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   and  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

whether  it  is  not  true  that  both  men  and  women  in 
England,  notwithstanding  the  unlimited  field  of  selection 
with  which  they  are  credited,  often  cannot  get  mated  at  all, 
even  with  the  irregular  help  of  matrimonial  agencies.  As 
to  Englishmen  being  able  to  eat  where  and  how  they  please, 
surely  the  anonymous  writer  I  have  quoted  above,  and 
taken  perhaps  too  seriously,  was  thinking  of  Hampstead 
Heath  on  a  Bank-holiday. 

After  all,  the  West  is  not  quite  so  free  from  social 
restraints  nor  the  East  so  enmeshed  in  them  as  some  seem 
to  think.  It  is  not  all  blissful  equality  and  happy  social 
freedom  on  one  side  of  the  world  and  all  hateful  social 
tyranny  on  the  other.  Limitations  and  restrictions  are 
essential  features  of  social  life  everywhere,  only  the  limita- 
tions and  restrictions  are  not  quite  the  same  in  the  Occident 
as  in  the  Orient.  This  is  a  point  worth  bearing  in  mind 
while  studying  the  problems  presented  by  Indian  life. 

Playing  up  to  the  party  who  advise  the  Indians  to 
busy  themselves  with  social  rather  than  political  questions, 
is  a  class  of  educated  Hindus,  conscientious  men  I  dare 
say,  not  very  numerous,  it  is  true,  but  useful  in  their 
way  and,  happily  for  themselves,  so  thoroughly  in  sympathy 
with  English  official  opinion  that  they  cannot  escape  the 
appreciative  attentions  or  the  special  rewards  of  a  dis- 
criminating government. 

Some  of  these,  with  almost  touching  confidence  in  the 
wisdom  of  their  foreign  rulers,  seem  desirous  of  placing  their 
native  reforming  propaganda  under  the  segis  of  the  British 
Government,  suggesting  to  this  end  the  formation  of  a 
special  Imperial  Legislative  Council  to  deal  with  social  and 
religious  questions  under  the  guidance  of  the  Viceroy.  But 
I  fancy  the  good  judgment  of  the  rulers  will  keep  them  free 
from  any  such  council,  now  or  hereafter. 

Last,  but  by  no  means  least,  amongst  Indian  reformers 
are  certain  important  Indian  feudatory  princes  and  a  few 
influential  territorial  magnates  whose  position  and  nationality 
enable  them  to  profess  and  carry  out  reforms  with  less 
offence  to  the  susceptibilities  of  their  people  than  would  be 
possible  in  the  case  of  alien  rulers. 

So   much   for   the  reformers  who  are  assailing  from 

i6o 


z 

Z 


Z    = 

<      3 

z< 

^     — 

a:  Z 

2    J 


^V^  OF  THE   ^. 
OF 


HINDU   SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

various  points,  with  divers  motives,  dissimilar  aims  and 
different  degrees  of  force,  the  fortress  of  long-established 
Hindu  customs.  But  this  ancient  stronghold,  built  as  it  is 
on  the  rock  of  religious  ordinances  and  traditions,  supported 
by  national  sentiment  and  guarded  by  a  powerful  hereditary 
priesthood,  is  not  likely  to  yield  any  positions  without  an 
obstinate  defence.  Indeed,  we  find  that  the  reformers  are 
everywhere  confronted  by  a  strong  body  of  Hindu  conserva- 
tives opposed  to  social  changes,  holding  that  innovations  of 
every  kind  sliould  be  vigorously  resisted,  since  departures 
from  old  ancestral  practices  have  a  tendency  to  revolution- 
ise and  even  disintegrate  society.  This  anti-reform  party 
is  not  only  recruited  from  the  ranks  of  the  more  backward 
orthodox  Hindus,  but  even  from  amongst  the  young  men 
who  have  been  educated  in  the  State  and  other  schools  and 
colleges  of  the  day.  For  the  attitude  which  these  educated 
Indians  take  against  sweeping  social  reforms  one  reason  at 
least  is  obvious  and  quite  natural  It  is  the  feeling  that 
whatever  may  be  the  defects  of  these  social  institutions, 
they  have  stood  the  test  of  time  and  need  not  be  hastily 
modified.  In  addition  to  this  natural  if  not  quite  sufficient 
reason  against  introducing  changes  into  Hindu  customs 
there  is,  I  know,  a  strong  conviction  in  the  minds  of  most 
educated  Indians  that  European  modes  of  life,  particularly 
in  regard  to  social  intercourse  between  the  sexes,  are  by  no 
means  free  from  many  serious  shortcomings  and  dangers  too, 
which  would  inevitably  appear  and  be  seriously  magnified 
in  any  purely  Indian  community  which  might  be  remodelled 
upon  existing  Western  lines ;  and  it  is  undoubtedly  in  the 
Western  world  that  would-be  reformers  do  mostly  find  the 
ideals  which  inspire  their  reforming  zeal,  however  much 
they  may  try  to  conceal  this  fact  from  their  fellow-country- 
men. Further,  the  pride  and  patriotism  of  a  vast  majority 
of  both  Hindus  and  Muslims  rebel  against  the  thought  of 
admitting  that  their  national  habits  and  customs,  based  on 
religious  sanctions,  are  in  any  way  inferior  to  those  of  their 
European  masters. 

However,   under    the    existing  political  conditions   of 
Indian  life  which  bring  the  people  into  perpetual  contact 
with   the  alien  civilisation,   religion,   and  literature   of  a 
L  i6i 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

powerful  and  dominant  race,  modifications  of  ideas  and 
changes  of  customs  are  inevitable.  For  my  own  part,  I 
must  confess  that  an  adequate  treatment  of  this  import- 
ant and  complex  subject  is  entirely  beyond  me;  yet 
I  nevertheless  hope  that  the  particulars  embodied  in 
this  chapter  will  give  the  European  reader  a  fair  idea 
of  the  direction  in  which  contemporary  Indian  social 
reformers  are  working  for  what  they  consider  social 
improvement.  I  also  hope  to  be  able,  at  the  same  time, 
to  direct  attention  to  some  of  the  results  of  the  new 
awakening. 


162 


HINDU   SOCIAL   EEFOEMEES 
— continued 

Skction  I. — Reformers  in  Council. 

•j^  MPERFECTION     being    inseparable    from    human 

I        institutions,  the  true   reformer   has   never  lacked, 

I        and  will  never  at  any  time  lack,  opportunities  of 

I        exercising  his  important  if  often  thankless  vocation ; 

*        but  the  reforms   preached  and  fought  for  at  any 

given     time    and    in    any    particular     place    are 

necessarily  peculiar  to  and  characteristic  of  the  period  and 

the  country,  and  so  naturally  throw  a  flood  of  light  upon 

the  condition  and  civilisation  of  the  people  amongst  whom 

they  are  advocated. 

Fully  appreciating  this  fact,  I  was  glad  when  representa- 
tive men  from  all  parts  of  India  assembled  in  the  capital 
of  the  Punjab,  primarily  to  discuss  political  questions,  but 
willing  at  the  same  time  to  air  their  views  on  the  most 
pressing  social  problems  of  the  day. 

As  a  pendant  to  the  National  Congress  held  at  Lahore 
in  1893  for  the  furtherance  of  the  political  aspirations  of 
the  educated  classes,  there  was  a  great  Social  Conference 
of  delegates  from  the  four  quarters  of  the  land,  affording 
me  a  long-desired  and  excellent  opportunity  of  learning 
what  India  was  thinking  about  in  regard  to  the  great 
questions  of  social  reform  which  had  come  to  the  fore 
in  recent  years,  and  I  did  not  fail  to  attend  the  Con- 
ference for  enlightenment  on  the  present  social  needs  of 
Aryavarta. 

From  a  preliminary  notice  issued  by  the  General 
Secretary,  Social  Conference,  Madras,  to  the  Secretaries  of 
Social  Reform  Societies  throughout  the  country,  I  learned 
that  resolutions  would  be  proposed  embodying  the  views  of 

163 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

the  Conference  in  regard  to  many  reforms  which   seemed 
desirable  in  existing  native  customs. 

The  meeting  was  held  in  a  huge  thatched  pavilion  called 
"  the  Pandal,"  specially  erected  for  the  National  Congress, 
provided  with  bent-wood  chairs  for  four  or  five  thousand 
persons.  Though  the  place  had  been  crowded  during  the 
political  meetings  of  the  Congress,  the  gathering  for  the 
Social  Conference  did  not  exceed  one  thousand  or  at  most 
twelve  hundred  persons.  Before  the  proceedings  of  the 
day  commenced  I  took  stock  of  my  surroundings,  and 
noticed  that  by  way  of  decoration  a  number  of  coloured 
glass  globes  had  been  hung  from  the  framework  of  the  roof, 
that  red  and  green  flags,  and  some  shields  with  the  British 
coat  of  arms  emblazoned  on  them,  had  also  been  used  to 
give  a  festive  aspect  to  the  pavilion.  As  a  silent,  visible 
declaration  of  loyalty  to  the  Government,  there  was  placed 
near  the  tribune  a  portrait  of  the  Queen-Empress. 

Old  Mr.  Dadabhai  Naoroji,  M.P.,  looking  limp  and 
worn-out,  attired  in  his  national  Parsee  costume,  wearing 
loose  maroon-coloured  trousers  and  one  of  those  peculiar 
Parsee  hats  so  familiar  in  Bombay,  sat  on  the  platform, 
an  embodiment  of  helpless  discontent.  Over  him  was 
held  an  umbrella  to  keep  off  the  rain,  which  was  leaking 
in  everywhere,  through  a  very  imperfectly  constructed  roof. 
To  such  a  degree  were  the  audience  incommoded,  that 
Mr.  Naoroji's  umbrella  was  only  one  of  many  which  were 
opened  in  the  building.  The  scene,  if  quaint,  was  also 
very  characteristic  and  decidedly  depressing. 

Only  one  Hindu  lady  graced  the  meeting  with  her 
presence.  Dressed  in  print  skirt  and  white  chaddar,  she 
sat  on  the  platform  with  a  little  girl  beside  her,  the  two 
representing  the  fair  sex  on  that  occasion.  As  the  business 
of  the  day,  conducted  entirely  in  English,  went  on,  the 
lady,  apparently  wearied  by  the  proceedings,  of  which  she 
probably  did  not  understand  a  word,  quietly  drew  up  one 
slender  leg  and  then  the  other  on  the  seat  of  the  chair  she 
occupied,  covered  herself  with  her  chaddar  as  completely 
as  possible,  and  composed  herself  to  sleep,  disdainfully 
regardless  of  the  social  problems  of  the  day.  After  a 
while  her  slumbers  were  disturbed  by  rain-water  leaking 

164 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

upon  her  from  above,  when  some  native  gentlemen  politely 
made  a  little  room  for  her  to  shift  her  chair  to  another 
spot.  Though  the  lady  did  not  evidently  appreciate  the 
work  of  the  Conference,  she  afforded  many  speakers  that 
day  the  opportunity  of  saying  "  Ladies  and  Gentlemen." 

All  classes  of  the  Hindu  community,  official  and  un- 
official, were  represented  in  the  audience :  from  a  Judge  of 
the  High  Court  of  Bombay  to  quite  junior  clerks  in  Govern- 
ment and  railway  offices;  from  prosperous  landed  gentry 
to  petty  shopkeepers. 

The  proceedings  were  most  orderly  and  business-like, 
but  I  missed  the  note  of  genuine  earnestness  throughout. 
Two  important  addresses  were  read  —  one  by  Dewan 
Narindra  Nath,  M.Au,  a  gentleman  of  private  means  and 
holding  an  important  official  position  in  the  Punjab;  the 
other  by  Mr.  Justice  Eanade,  of  the  Bombay  High  Court.^ 
No  doubt  the  speakers  had  thrashed  out  the  subjects  scores 
of  times  before,  and  while  they  spoke  were  uncomfortably 
conscious  of  the  dead  weight  of  ancestral  prejudice  and 
feminine  conservatism  which  refused  to  be  moved  or 
modified  by  all  their  well-meant  endeavours  up  to  that 
moment. 

As  a  result  of  the  deliberations  of  the  Conference,  a 
dozen  resolutions  were  carried  after  the  usual  speeches,  and 
afford  a  glimpse  of  the  many  very  important  points  which 
are  engaging  the  attention  of  present-day  reformers  in 
India ;  for  they  embrace  such  questions  as  the  following : 
Temperance,  higher  female  education,  infant  marriage, 
extravagant  expenditure  at  weddings,  the  remarriage  of 
widows,  intermarriage  between  sub-castes,  and  the  improve- 
ment of  the  Hindu  joint-family  system.  There  were  also 
resolutions  touching  foreign  (beyond  sea)  travel,  loud 
mourning  at  funerals  in  the  Punjab,  naughty  nautch  gu'ls, 
and  the  prevention  of  confficts  between  Hindus  and 
Muhammadans  in  connection  with  religious  processions 
and  observances.  Further,  as  bearing  directly  upon  the 
business  of  the  Conference,  it  was   resolved  that  "social 

'  Both  of  these  addresses  are  given  in  full  in  a  bulky  Tolnme  entitled 
Indian  Social  Reform,  edited  by  C.  Yajnesvara  Chintamani  (Thompson 
&  Co.,  Madias). 

165 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

reform  funds"  should  be  raised  by  social  and  other 
associations,  and  applications  made  to  Government  to 
exempt  such  associations  from  the  operation  of  the  rules 
laid  down  in  Act  VI.  of  1882. 

These  resolutions  afford  good  examples  of  the  nature 
of  the  subjects  which  are  engaging  the  attention  of  con- 
temporary social  reformers  in  India.  Some  of  the  matters 
taken  up  were,  however,  of  merely  local  interest;  for 
example,  the  question  of  the  Siapa  system  of  mourning 
aloud  and  beating  the  chest  vigorously  which  prevails  at 
present  in  certain  parts  of  North-Western  India.  Others, 
again,  were  undoubtedly  inspired  by  political  rather  than 
social  considerations,  the  one,  for  instance,  which  relates  to 
disturbances  between  Hindus  and  Muhammadans.  That 
this  was  the  case,  the  speeches  I  listened  to  left  no  doubt 
in  my  mind ;  certain  speakers  insidiously  hinting  that 
they  knew  where  the  real  fomenting  forces  of  these  disturb- 
ances were  to  be  found,  but  they  had  been  advised  not  to 
speak  on  this  point,  and  refrained  from  doing  so.  The 
impression  which  these  orators  wished  to  leave  on  the 
minds  of  the  audience  was  that  the  Government  itself 
desired  to  secretly  encourage,  for  its  own  advantage, 
dissensions  and  divisions  between  the  two  great  religious 
sections  of  the  Indian  community. 

One  result  of  the  Conference  must  have  been  to 
strengthen  the  hands  of  the  local  reformers,  for  it  would 
enable  them  to  quote,  in  support  of  their  labours,  the 
deliberately  expressed  and  authoritative  opinions  of  men 
of  culture  and  position  in  Hindu  society  drawn  from  all 
parts  of  India.  To  this  extent,  at  any  rate,  the  work  of 
the  Conference  would  be  neither  futile  nor  ineffectual. 

A  feature  of  more  recent  Congresses  has  been  an 
Industrial  Exhibition,  which,  however  excellent  and  useful 
in  itself,  cannot  but  distract  attention  from  the  main 
purposes  of  the  Congress,  and  tend  to  make  of  it  a  great 
annual  tamasha  (entertainment).  "  So  much  the  better," 
many  will  say  or  think;  but  the  yearly  Conference  is  an 
institution  of  supreme  importance  to  India,  and  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  its  distinctive  character  may  be  preserved  and 
its  usefulness  be  increased  and  not  impaired. 

166 


HINDU    SOCIAL   KEFORMEES 
— continued 

Section  II. — A  typical  reformer — A  Yogi  lecturer  on  "  How  to  make  a 
dead  man  alive." 

f^^  OLLOWING  the  plan  I  have  deliberately  adopted 
^  of  bringing   the   reader,  as  often  as  possible, 

♦  face  to  face,  as  it  were,  with  living  men  and 

their  doings,  I  now  invite  him  to  meet  a  typical 
present-day  Indian  reformer,  and  with  his  help 
to  consider  once  more  a  familiar  evil  presented 
in  a  new  and  peculiar  setting. 

A  lecture  by  a  certain  Swami  of  the  sect  of  the  Yogis, 
was  publicly  announced,  the  subject,  as  stated  on  the  bills, 
being,  "  How  to  make  a  dead  man  alive."  A  Yogi — perhaps 
a  Mahatma ! — on  such  an  important  matter  was  irresistible, 
so  without  hesitation  I  resolved  to  attend  the  meeting  and 
profit  by  the  Yogi's  wisdom. 

Swami-ji  appeared  upon  the  platform  at  the  appointed 
hour,  with  long  wavy  black  hair  carefully  combed  and  oUed, 
a  full  black  beard  and  a  somewhat  abstracted  look.  He  was 
well  clothed  in  flowing  garments  of  an  orange-yellow  colour, 
and  altogether  looked  very  different  from  the  Yogis  with 
whom  I  had  long  been  famihar. 

When  introduced  to  the  audience,  he  stood  up  with  his 
eyes  shut  and  passed  his  hand  over  his  face.  After  a  long 
pause  he  began,  in  EngHsh,  a  prayer  to  God,  addressing 
Him  always  as  "  Dear  Lord,"  praising  Him  and  asking  His 
blessing  for  the  chairman,  the  audience,  and  the  speaker 
himself,  in  phrases  that  would  not  have  been  strange  in  the 
mouth  of  a  very  ordinary  dissenting  minister,  or  a  free 
lance  amongst  Christian  preachers  of  the  less  educated  sort. 
Following  the  prayer  came   the   lecture,  also  in  EngKsh, 

167 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

delivered  in  slow,  measured  tones,  and  with  an  ample  use 
of  polysyllabic  words,  badly  mispronounced. 

Having  made  the  allusions  to  John  Stuart  Mill  and 
Herbert  Spencer,  which  one  must  be  prepared  for  on  such 
occasions,  the  Swami  warmed  to  his  work.  He  told  us 
his  mission  was  to  war  with  a  destructive  demon,  a  terrible 
devil  who  was  in  the  midst  of  us,  and  was  preying  upon 
the  life  of  our  dear  Mother  India,  adding  with  a  mysterious 
intonation  and  appropriate  gesture  that  the  demon  foe 
was  in  that  very  room  even  while  he  was  speaking  to  us. 
"  But,"  exclaimed  Swami-ji  emphatically,  "  I  shall  presently 
drag  him  before  you,  and  you  shall  judge  him  for 
yourselves." 

The  Swami  next  narrated  a  story  of  the  Mogul  Emperor 
Akbar  and  his  "  legislative  council."  The  famous  monarch, 
said  the  lecturer,  once  asked  his  councillors  whether  they 
knew  any  way  by  which  a  dead  man  might  be  brought  to 
life.  One  replied,  "  My  Lord,  I  think  this  feat  is  not  beyond 
the  powers  of  the  science  of  our  great  doctors  at  Con- 
stantinople. Let  me  go  thither  and  learn  the  art  and  I 
will  come  back  and  answer  your  Majesty."  Another 
councillor  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  secret  of  such 
wonderful  power  was  known  only  to  the  Egyptians,  adding 
that,  if  permitted  to  do  so,  he  would  go  to  the  land  of 
Egypt  and  learn  what  the  great  king  wished  to  know. 
Akbar  was  too  impatient  to  be  satisfied  with  such  answers, 
and  sent  off  at  once  for  his  wise  Hindu  minister  Eajah 
Birbul.  When  Birbul  presented  himself  at  the  Imperial 
Durbar,  the  Emperor  put  the  same  question  to  him  that 
lie  had  addressed  to  the  other  councillors.  But  instead 
of  replying,  the  astute  Hindu  begged  for  time  till  the 
next  morning  to  give  his  answer.  Birbul  retired  to  his 
magnificent  palace  to  think  the  matter  over,  and  "the 
Emperor  sought  his  cosy  couch,  or  rather  his  hot  and  rest- 
less bed,"  for  he  could  not  sleep  in  his  anxiety  to  learn  what 
the  wise  Eajah  Birbul's  answer  would  be.  "  The  cock,  the 
herald  of  the  morn,  in  due  time  awoke  the  whole  world,"  and 
Akbar  commanded  Birbul  to  his  presence.  The  sage  Hindu 
appeared,  and  commenced  by  telling  the  king  that  there 
lived  ia  his  dominions  a  terrible  demon,  a  malignant  fiend, 

i68 


HINDU  SOCIAL   REFORMERS 

who  destroyed  great  numbers  of  his  subjects,  and  that  if  he 
could  be  controlled  or  driven  away  a  great  many  dead  people 
would  become  alive  again.  This  information  gave  rise  to 
the  following  dialogue : — 

Akbar.  Is  it  so  ?     Can  this  be  possible  ? 

Birbul.  Alas !  it  is  too  true. 

Akhar.  In  what  cave  or  forest  does  this  demon  live  ? 

Birbul.  Sire,  he  lives  neither  in  a  cave  nor  in  a  forest, 
but  in  a  small,  narrow,  crystal  palace  of  his  own. 

Akhar.  In  a  crystal  palace ;  and  in  my  dominions  ? 

Birbul.  Yes,  my  Lord,  in  your  own  dominions  and  in 
this  very  city. 

Akbar.  What!  here?  and  I  not  know  about  it  Who 
are  his  relatives,  what  is  his  name  ? 

Birbul.  His  relatives,  your  Majesty,  are  many,  such  as 
Debility,  Disease,  Impotence,  Insanity,  Debauchery,  and 
Crime.     His  name  is  one  made  up  of  only  four  letters. 

Akbar.  What  four  letters  ? 

Birbul.  W,  I,  N,  K 
At  which  the  audience  cheered  and  laughed  loudly,  tickled 
at  Akbar's  famous  minister  spelling  the  demon's  name  in 
letters  of  the  English  alphabet  to  his  august  master. 

In  the  midst  of  the  hilarious  applause  the  Swami 
produced  from  under  his  chaddar,  I  think,  something 
wrapped  in  paper,  and  gradually  removing  the  covering 
disclosed  to  view  a  bottle  made  of  clear  transparent  glass, 
which  seemed  to  contain  some  reddish-coloured  syrup.  With 
creditable  dramatic  power  he  exclaimed, "  Here  is  the  Demon 
in  his  crystal  palace !  Here  is  the  enemy  of  our  beloved 
mother  India  !  I  have  dragged  him  before  you !  Behold  the 
Monster ! "  Then  changing  his  tone,  "  No,"  he  said,  cuddling 
the  bottle, "  this  is  Old  Tom,  who  is  the  dear  friend  of  so 
many  of  us,"  and  then,  regardless  of  the  verities,  went  on 
excitedly  to  speak  of  it  as  whisky  and  brandy,  using  it  as 
a  symbol  for  strong  drink.  Holding  up  the  bottle  with  its 
reddish-coloured  contents,  Swami-ji  asked,  "Has  this  no 
virtues  ? "  and  answering  his  own  question  said,  "  Oh  yes, 
it  has  its  virtues,  as  Eajah  Birbul  told  the  Emperor  It 
has  these  vktues  that  he  who  takes  it  long  is  not  visited 
by  thieves,  he  never  grows  grey,  and  he  is  not  likely  to 

169 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF  INDIA 

get  hydrophobia,  because  he  usually  carries  a  stout  stick  to 
support  his  tottering  limbs." 

Leaving  his  figures  of  speech  and  turning  to  prosaic 
details,  the  lecturer  told  us  how  drink  had  been  the  curse 
of  many  of  the  best  men  in  India,  and  particularly  so  in 
his  beloved  Bengal,  where  some  of  the  leading  men,  whom 
he  did  not  hesitate  to  name,  had  fallen  victims  to  drink.^ 

The  lecturer  wound  up  his  address  with  a  story  to 
which  he  requested  our  special  attention,  and  which, 
whether  original  or  not,  is  good  enough  to  bear  repetition. 
It  was  this : 

An  orthodox  Hindu  went  on  a  round  of  travels — of 
course  without  a  penny  in  his  pocket — and  one  day  resting 
under  a  tree  saw  in  the  distance  what  looked  like  a 
magnificent  building.  "Brother,"  he  asked  a  passer-by, 
"  what  place  is  that  ? "  "  Mr.  Traveller,  go  and  see  it," 
was  the  reply.  "  Can  I  enter  it  ? "  "  Yes,  surely."  "  And 
what  is  the  charge  for  admission  ? "  "  Oh !  nothing  at 
all." 

So  "Mr.  Traveller"  girded  up  his  loins,  took  his  staff 
in  his  hand  and  proceeded  towards  the  palace.  When  he 
approached  it,  he  noticed  that  it  had  four  splendid  gates, 
each  of  which  was  guarded  by  an  armed  sentinel.  He 
presented  himself  at  the  nearest  gate  and  asked  permission 
to  enter.  The  door-keeper  courteously  assured  him  that 
he  might  do  so,  but  only  on  one  condition,  and  that  an 
easy  one  indeed.  "  You  see,"  continued  the  sentinel,  "  this 
platter  in  my  hand.  It  contains  a  savoury  dish  of  meat — 
the  flesh  of  dogs — you  have  only  to  eat  this  and  pass  in." 

"  Oh,  horror !  what,  I  an  orthodox  Hindu  and  a  vegetarian 
to  eat  the  flesh  of  animals  and  worse  still  of  dogs.  That 
is  abominable  even  to  think  of.  I  cannot  do  it.  Is  there 
no  other  way,  Mr.  Sentinel,  of  obtaining  admission  to  the 
palace  ? "    "  Try  the  next  gate,"  was  the  gruff  response. 

To  the  next  gate  went  our  orthodox  vegetarian  traveller. 
In  reply  to  his  inquiries,  the  sentinel  on  duty  slyly  pointed 
to  a  little  boy  who  was  playing  not  far  off,  well  dressed, 
and  covered  with  jewels,  and  told  the  traveller  that  if  he 

^  At  the  conclusion  of  the  lecture,  Swami's  statements  in  this  respect 
were  flatly  contradicted  by  some  Bengali  gentlemen  who  were  present. 

170 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

would  kill  the  child  and  help  himself  to  his  ornaments  he 
might  pass  in  to  view  the  lovely  palace. 

"  What !  commit  both  murder  and  robbery  ?  Never ! 
Never!"  said  the  horrified  visitor,  and  passed  on  to  the 
third  gate.  Here  he  found  a  beautiful  woman  sitting  near 
the  sentinel. 

The  modest  lecturer  felt  that  he  could  not  utter  before 
his  "  august  audience  "  the  shameful  act  which  the  traveller 
was  invited  to  do.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  orthodox 
Hindu  hurried  from  the  spot,  and  without  looking  back 
presented  himself  at  the  fourth  and  last  gate.  In  a  genial 
way  the  sentinel  assured  him  that  admittance  could  be 
easily  obtained  at  his  gate.  He  need  only  drink  two 
chhutdnks  ^  of  brandy  out  of  the  cup  he  held  in  his  hand  and 
might  then  pass  in. 

But  Mr.  Orthodox  Hindu  turned  sadly  away  and  went 
back  to  the  shade  of  the  tree.  He  pondered  the  matter, 
and  still  eagerly  curious  to  see  the  inside  of  the  magnificent 
pile  which  stood  before  him,  combated  the  conscientious 
scruples  which  had  been  raised  in  his  mind  by  the  sug- 
gestions of  the  four  sentinels.  "After  all,"  he  concluded, 
"  there  is  not  so  much  difference  between  water  and  brandy, 
which  latter  is  only  grape-juice  " ;  so  he  finally  returned  to 
the  fourth  gate,  drank  the  brandy  and  obtained  admittance 
to  the  palace. 

When  he  came  out  he  was  singing  merrily,  and  wanted 
more  brandy ;  the  sentinel  at  the  gate  declined  to  give  him 
any  more ;  but  advised  him  to  buy  what  he  required  at  the 
pubUc-house. 

"  I  am  a  mere  traveller,"  said  the  orthodox  Hindu  in 
surprise,  "  and  have  no  money.  How  can  I  buy  brandy  ? " 
"Very  easily,"  was  the  reply.  "Go  to  the  second  gate, 
murder  the  child  you  saw  there,  take  his  ornaments  and 
purchase  what  you  crave  for." 

Our  orthodox,  but  now  fallen,  Hindu  traveller,  acting 
upon  this  suggestion,  committed  both  murder  and  robbery, 
and  satisfied  his  longing  for  more  drink.  Presently  feeling 
hungry,  he  ate  and  enjoyed  the  dish  of  dogs'  flesh  he  had 
previously  declined,  and  after  that  fiUed  up  the  measure 

^  Clihatdnk — A  two- ounce  weight. 
171 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

of  his  crimes  by  committing  that  other  sin  at  the  third 
gate  which  he  had  before  resisted,  and  rolling  on  the 
ground  in  a  disgraceful,  insensible  condition,  found  himself 
in  the  gutter. 

It  was  an  instructive  parable  we  had  heard  that  after- 
noon, and  I  need  not  point  out  that  while  battling  in  the 
good  cause  of  temperance,  as  so  many  Westerns  are 
doing  to-day,  the  Yogi  lecturer  had  a  style  and  a  method 
peculiarly  his  own,  and  yet  very  racy  of  the  Indian  soil. 

Intemperance,  as  I  have  often  been  told  by  Indian 
gentlemen,  has  in  recent  years  been  on  the  increase 
amongst  the  better  educated  classes.  As  Indians  of  what- 
ever social  rank  do  not  associate  with  Europeans,  do  not 
except  on  rare  occasions  eat  and  drink  with  them  or  even 
meet  them  on  a  friendly  social  footing,  it  is  evident  that 
the  growth  of  habits  of  inebriety  amongst  the  natives 
cannot  well  be  attributed  to  the  bad  example  of  Europeans, 
and  must  be  due  to  other  causes ;  probably  to  the  excite- 
ment and  unrest  which  are  undeniable  results  of  contact 
with  the  strenuous  ideals  and  modes  of  life  and  work  in  a 
hustling  money-grubbing  age  like  ours. 

A  rather  curious  encouragement  to  drink,  in  India  at 
the  present  time,  is  the  belief  that  ardent  spirits  act  as  a 
plague  prophylactic.  Perhaps  alcohol  in  moderation  is  a 
preventive  against  this  fell  disease.  I  cannot  say,  but  the 
belief  amongst  the  natives  is  probably  due  to  the  immunity 
from  plague  generally  enjoyed  by  the  European  community 
in  India. 

In  every  considerable  town  in  the  Punjab  there  are 
Temperance  Associations,  and  I  presume  they  would  not 
exist  if  they  were  not  needed.  The  Sikhs  in  the  Native 
States  have  also  taken  up  the  question  of  Temperance 
very  seriously. 

In  all  the  Provinces  of  India  the  same  activity  prevails. 

"Apostles  of  Temperance"  from  Europe,  aided  by 
Christian  missionaries,  have  given  a  great  impetus  to  the 
formation  of  Temperance  Societies  and  Total  Abstinence 
Associations,  which,  with  local  differences,  are  conducted 
upon  the  main  lines  adopted  in  Europe  and  America. 
These    societies    and    associations    hold    meetings,    have 

172 


HINDU  SOCIAL   REFORMERS 

lectures  and  addresses,  encourage  pledge-signing,  organise 
processions  with  bands  playing  and  banners  flying,  arrange 
for  the  public  singing  of  temperance  ballads  in  the 
vernacular,  and  the  circulation  of  tracts  illustrating  the 
evils  of  drink.  They  further  arrange  for  the  performance 
of  temperance  plays,  one  of  which  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
witnessing  in  the  native  theatre  at  Amritsar,  and  a  toler- 
ably good  play  it  was,,  setting  forth  in  Hindu  dramatic 
fashion  the  evils  of  alcoholism.  Of  course  winged  peris 
(angels  or  fairies)  were  amongst  the  dramatis  personce,  and 
curiously  enough  some  of  the  temperance  h}Tnns  introduced 
into  the  play  were  set  to  once  popular  English  airs,  such 
as  "Sweet  Dreamland  Faces"  and  "Wait  till  the  Clouds 
roll  by,  Jenny." 

Though  equally  demoralising  in  its  results  whether  in 
the  East  or  the  West,  drunkenness  in  India  can,  however, 
at  times  put  on  a  complexion  impossible  in  Europe;  for 
Indian  inebriates  with  the  religious  zeal  of  their  race  have 
actually  been  known  to  worship  the  bottle.  A  few  years 
ago  it  came  to  my  knowledge  that  an  Indian  clerk  being 
suspected  of  certain  fraudulent  ti-ansactions,  a  sudden  raid 
was  made  upon  his  residence  by  the  police  in  order  to 
secure,  if  possible,  documentary  evidence  against  him.  His 
papers  were  seized,  and  amongst  them  were  found  an  extra- 
ordinary collection  of  photographs,  in  which  he  and  some 
of  his  friends  appear  worshipping  the  whisky  bottle,  or  in 
all  sorts  of  Bacchanalian  attitudes  with  the  bottle  being 
drained,  and  so  on.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  never  had 
the  chance  of  seeing  the  photographs,  nor  have  I  had  them 
properly  described  to  me.  But  it  is  quite  possible  to 
imagine  the  young  topers  standing  round  a  table,  with 
garlands  about  their  necks  and  bottles  arranged  before 
them.  The  host,  high  priest  for  the  occasion,  would  be 
crowned  with  flowers  and  ornamented  with  patches  of  red 
lead  or  other  such  pigment.  Standing  in  respectful  atti- 
tudes before  the  bottles  the  worshippers  would  probably 
sing  a  hhajan  or  hymn  appropriate  to  the  occasion,  and 
then  go  in  for  a  real  good  carouse. 

Without  religion  in  everything  the  Hindu  cannot  appa- 
rently get  on  at  all ! 

173 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

Like  the  rest  of  the  world,  the  people  of  India  have, 
unfortunately,  their  own  drink  difficulty,  and  must  face  it 
with  all  the  weapons  they  can  command.  The  Temperance 
movement  in  India  of  which  I  have  been  writing  is  by  no 
means  premature,  and  it  has  one  very  important  feature 
which  gives  it  more  than  ordinary  significance,  for  in  it 
are  united,  as  a  matter  of  course,  all  classes  of  the  com- 
munity— Hindus,  Muhammadans,  and  Christians.  It  is  a 
cause  which  can  for  a  special  purpose  and  a  common  object 
draw  together  into  harmonious  action  all  ranks  and  creeds, 
and  so  far  is  an  instrument  for  bringing  about  united  effort, 
the  value  of  which  from  a  political  point  of  view  is  not, 
I  am  sure,  undervalued  by  the  local  wire-pullers. 


174 


HINDU    SOCIAL    EEFOEMEES 
— coTitinued 

Section  III. — ^The  reform  of  mai-riage  customs  the  special  aim  of 
certain  reformers. 

AMONGST  the  subjects  dealt  with  in  the  resolu- 
tions of  the  Social  Conference  already  referred 
to,  those  relating  to  infant  marriage  and  the 
remarriage  of  widows  deserve  serious  atten- 
tion, lying  as  they  do  at  the  very  root  of 
Indian  family  life. 
In  most  countries  and  in  all  ages  women  have  been 
looked  upon  by  men  as  desirable  possessions,  and  in  the 
olden  time,  all  the  world  over,  wives  had  been  obtained 
by  capture  at  great  personal  risk,  by  purchase  at  varying 
prices  according  to  circumstances,  by  service  extending 
perhaps  over  many  years,  and  sometimes — markedly  so 
amongst  certain  European  races — by  open  and  honour- 
able courtship.  But  in  India  for  ages  past  a  girl-child 
has  been  looked  upon  as  so  worthless  that  female  infanticide 
was  the  commonest  of  crimes  in  that  country.  Even 
to-day  in  India  a  girl  is  so  undesirable  an  addition  to  a 
family  that  no  one  would  think  of  congratulating  a  parent 
on  the  birth  of  a  female  child,  and  her  unhappy  father  has 
in  due  course  to  give  the  highest  dowry  he  can  possibly 
afford  in  order  to  find  her  a  husband,  which  he  is  hound  to  do 
wilder  the  most  terrible  social  and  religous  penalties.  When 
he  has  done  what  the  law  requires  of  him,  and  has  perhaps 
beggared  himself  in  the  doing  of  it,  he  may  never,  so  it  is 
enjoined,  cross  the  threshold  of  his  daughter's  new  home  or 
partake  of  a  morsel  of  food  or  a  drop  of  water  in  her  house.^ 
With  such  ideas  pervading  Hindu  family  life,  the  posi- 
*  Shib  Chunder  Bose,  The  Hindoos  as  they  are. 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

tion  of  the  woman  has  not  been  an  enviable  one,  and 
it  is  not  surprising  that,  under  the  influence  of  Western 
civilisation  brought  to  their  doors,  efforts  have  been  made 
from  within  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  these  sufferers 
from  long  ages  of  unjust  treatment. 

Various  questions  of  social  reform  have  consequently 
been  brought  into  public  discussion  rather  prominently 
within  recent  years,  giving  rise  to  much  controversy 
between  the  progressives  inoculated  with  Western  notions 
and  the  old  school  of  orthodoxy ;  the  discord  being  especi- 
ally pronounced  where  the  proposed  departures  from  time- 
honoured  customs  affected  the  position  and  obligations  of 
women  in  the  Hindu  social  system. 

Not  many  years  ago  a  peculiar  warmth  was  imported 
into  these  discussions,  and  a  powerful  impulse  given  to 
the  movement  for  social  reforms,  by  the  intrusion  into 
the  arena  of  a  non-Hindu  native  of  India,  who,  well  aware 
of  the  facts  connected  with  the  existing  and  widespread 
customs  of  infant  marriage  and  enforced  widowhood,  urged 
the  pressing  necessity  for  reform  on  both  these  points. 
The  outsider  referred  to,  Mr.  Behramji  Malabari,  a  Parsee 
journalist  of  Bombay,  devoted  himself  with  rare  energy 
and  determination  to  the  removal  of  what  appeared  to  him 
to  constitute  palpable  evils  in  Hindu  social  life. 

Through  the  medium  of  the  Press,  also  by  means  of 
lecturing  tours  and  even  by  direct  personal  appeals  to 
the  highest  British  authorities,  this  gentleman  created  a 
great  sensation,  stirring  up  Hindu  society  to  a  remarkable 
degree,  and,  as  might  have  been  expected,  exciting  no  in- 
considerable amount  of  ill-will  against  himself.  Not  that 
Mr.  Malabari  was  the  pioneer  in  this  cause.  Many  worthy 
Hindus  of  great  ability  and  good  social  position  had 
preceded  him,  and  many  were  working  contemporaneously 
towards  the  ends  he  had  in  view ;  but  the  burning,  unresting 
zeal  and  public  methods  of  the  Parsee  outsider  attracted  more 
general  attention  to  the  cause  he  had  at  heart  than  the 
more  languid  efforts  of  Hindu  reformers,  themselves 
hampered  by  dread  of  caste  penalties  and  restrained  by 
natural  tenderness  towards  the  feelings  and  prejudices  of 
loved  and  venerated  relatives  and  friends. 

176 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

While  many  leading  Hindus  were  brought  by  Mr.  Mala- 
bari's  crusade  against  infant  marriage  and  enforced  widowhood 
to  a  full  realisation  of  the  cruelty  and  manifold  harmfulness 
of  these  customs,  there  were  others  so  irritated  by  his 
attacks  upon  their  ancient  well-established  social  life  as  to 
resent  his  intermeddling  in  their  affairs,  and  to  vigorously 
deny  both  the  accuracy  of  his  facts  and  the  validity  of  his 
conclusions. 

The  consideration  of  such  matters,  affecting  as  they  do 
the  happiness  and  reputation  of  Hindu  households,  could 
not  be  carried  on  without  glancing  for  confirmation,  or 
otherwise,  at  life  outside  the  Indian  zone.  Contrasts 
between  European  and  Indian  modes  of  life  were  inevitably 
dragged  into  the  discussions,  accusations,  and  recrimina- 
tions which  arose  out  of  these  delicate  questions.  The  real 
or  sentimental  status  of  women  in  the  West  and  the  East 
respectively  were  compared  by  angry  scribes,  who,  as  a 
rule,  were  ill-informed  or  wanting  in  judgment.  Hindu 
conservatives,  represented  mostly  by  certain  Bengali 
journals,  used  their  ingenuity  in  this  controversy  to  point 
out  and  to  exaggerate  the  imperfections  of  European 
society  in  its  treatment  of  women,  and  these  critics  were 
answered  according  to  their  lights  by  the  advocates  for 
reform  amongst  their  own  countrymen. 

One  result  of  this  journalistically  conducted  warfare 
about  social  reforms  has  certainly  been  to  bring  before  the 
world  a  large  number  of  important  facts,  very  welcome  to 
European  students  of  India,  whether  official  or  other,  relat- 
ing to  Hindu  home-life  and  the  condition  and  treatment  of 
Hindu  women  in  our  time,  and  it  has  also  made  clear  the 
estimation  in  which  the  weaker  sex  is  held  by  both  educated 
and  vmeducated  Indians  at  the  present  day. 

Echoes  of  the  strife  soon  penetrated  even  to  the  seclusion 
of  the  zenanas,  and  in  many  a  quiet  home  the  spirit  of 
rebellion  has  thereby  been  stirred  up  in  the  hearts  of 
women  longing  for  the  emancipation  which  is  being  promised 
to  them  by  the  prophets  of  this  reforming  age. 

Interesting  cases  arising,  without  doubt,  out  of 
the  dissemination  of  the  new  ideas  have  attracted 
public  attention  and  evoked  very  conflicting  sentiments 
M  177 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

and  judgments.  As  an  example  of  this  I  may  allude  to 
the  case  of  the  ghi-wife  Eukhmabai,  which  came  into  the  law 
courts.  The  facts  are  simply:  Eukhmabai,  a  Hinduani, 
had  been  married  in  infancy  (and,  of  course,  without  her 
consent)  to  one  Dadaji  Bhikhaji ;  but  the  marriage  had 
not  been  consummated.  The  husband,  who  is  said  to  have 
been  a  worthless  profligate,  ruined  in  body  and  mind,  was 
sensible  enough,  however,  to  be  aware  that  his  girl-wife,  who 
had  received  some  education  and  was  also  likely  to  inherit 
a  little  property  from  her  grandmother,  was  an  asset  of 
some  value.  Such  a  wife,  though  hitherto  neglected,  was 
not  to  be  lost  sight  of,  so  Dadaji  called  upon  her  to  live  with 
him  under  his  uncle's  roof.  But  the  spirited  girl's  feelings 
revolted  against  the  depraved  fellow  whom  she  did  not 
know,  and  who  had  been  no  choice  of  hers,  and  she 
firmly  refused  to  join  him.  Supported  by  his  friends, 
Dadaji  now  resolved  to  invoke  the  assistance  of  the  law 
to  compel  Eukhmabai  to  submit  herself  to  his  will.  He 
therefore  instituted  proceedings  against  her,  for  the 
restitution  or  rather  the  enforcement  of  conjugal  rights. 
The  point  at  issue  being  the  obligation  involved  in  an 
unconsummated  infant  marriage,  attracted  in  certain  sections 
of  Hindu  society  considerable  attention  at  the  time.  Here 
were  all  the  elements  required  to  appeal  on  the  one  hand 
to  the  liberal  sentiments  of  reformers  generally,  and  on  the 
other  to  excite  the  deep-rooted  prejudices  of  an  ancient  and 
multitudinous  community.  The  child-wife,  whose  consent 
had  never  been  asked  to  the  matrimonial  alliance  to  which 
she  had  been  made  a  party,  discovered  before  the  consum- 
mation of  the  wedding  the  utter  worthlessness  of  the  man 
to  whom  she  had  been  linked.  To  become  his  wife  in 
reality  and  share  his  home  with  him  was  hateful  to  her. 
Encouraged  by  the  spirit  of  reform  which  was  in  the  air, 
she  resolved  with  rare  courage  to  repudiate  the  alliance 
and  to  trust  to  the  justice  and  liberal  ideas  of  the  alien 
rulers  of  her  country  to  free  her  from  the  bonds  in  which 
she  had  been  placed.  Of  course  there  were  many  to 
sympathise  with  the  strong-minded  girl  in  her  revolt 
against  the  tyranny  of  custom,  and  when  the  English  judge 
who  first  heard  her  case  decided  in  favour  of  the  girl-wife, 

178 


J 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

her  friends  were  elated  with  the  victory  thus  scored  against 
the  system  of  infant  marriage,  while  orthodoxy  was  shocked 
and  alarmed.  The  matter  was  not  allowed  to  end  there.  It 
was  carried  to  the  Appellate  Court,  when,  to  the  disappoint- 
ment of  the  reformers,  the  law  was  declared  to  be  against 
Eukhmabai.  No  doubt  this  decision  was  correct  and  politic, 
but  it  was  none  the  less  deplorable. 

I  am  not  aware  whether  the  assistance  of  the  police 
was  invoked  to  force  the  rebellious  girl  into  the  arms  of  her 
husband.  But  this  coui'se  was  certainly  open  to  Dadaji,  and 
is  by  no  means  a  rare  occurrence  in  India. 

Because  of  the  vastness  of  the  country,  hardly  anything 
that  can  be  affirmed  about  one  part  of  India  holds  good, 
without  ample  qualification,  for  other  parts  of  it,  a  point 
which  should  always  be  kept  in  mind  in  making  general 
statements  regarding  the  climate,  the  productions,  or  the 
people  of  the  enormous  territory  under  the  sway  of  the 
Indian  Viceroy.  After  making  the  necessary  allowances  on 
this  account,  the  facts  as  regards  infant  marriage  and  en- 
forced widowhood  in  India  may  be  briefly  summarised  as 
follows : — 

1.  It  is   undeniably   true   that    throughout   India   the 

marriage  of  very  young  girls  from  two  to  eight  years 
of  age,  with  equally  young  boys,  or  often  with  adults 
of  any  age,  is  a  very  common  practice  amongst 
Hindus.^ 

2.  Equally    true    is    it    that    (at    least    until    recent 

legislative  action  by  the  Indian  Government)  even 
the  consummation  of  the  marriage  has  commonly 
taken  place  when  the  child-wife  was  perhaps  no 
more  than  ten  years  of  age. 

3.  Hindu  widows,  however  young,  and  even  if  virgins 

at  the  time  of  the  husband's  demise,  are,  as  a 
general  rule,  unable,  on  account  of  stringent 
religious     and     social    regulations,    to    remarry, 

^  The  practice  also  prevails  in  a  lesser  degree,  amongst  Parsees  and  Indian 
Muhammadans,  but  it  cannot  be  repugnant  to  the  religious  sentiments  of 
the  latter,  since  the  Prophet  of  Islam  married  Ayishah  when  she  was  only 
nine  years  old.  She  was  his  favourite  wife,  and  lived  to  the  age  of  sixty- 
seven. 

179  ■ 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

although  authorised  to  do  so  by  British  Indian  law 
(Act  XV.  of  1856). 

4.  Hindu  widows,  as  a  rule,  are  a  despised  class,  and 

under  the  recognised  rules  of  Hindu  society  are 
systematically  exposed  to  great  personal  indignities 
and  hardships. 

5.  Despite  reformers,  there  is  an  undoubted  tendency  at 

the  present  day  amongst  certain  classes  to  adopt  the 

above  practices,  although  these  may  not  hitherto  have 

heen  favoured  hy  them. 

When  we  discover  that  the  existence  of  such  peculiar 

practices  throughout  the  enormous  area  over  which  Hinduism 

holds  sway  is  of  very  long  standing,  we  are  led  irresistibly  to 

the  conclusion  that  they  must  have  religious  bases,  and  that 

the  political  and  social  conditions  of  the  country  must  have 

favoured  their  prolonged  continuance. 

We  may  therefore  profitably  seek  to  ascertain  and  note 
such  information  as  may  be  available  to  throw  light  upon 
these  points. 

For  the  better  treatment  of  the  subject  we  may  deal 
separately  with  Infant  Marriage  and  Enforced  Widowhood, 
although,  as  we  shall  see,  they  are  very  intimately  connected 
with  each  other. 


i8o 


HINDU    SOCIAL   EEFOEMEES 
— contimted 

Section  IV. — Infant  marriage. 

^^  V^E  have  it  on  the  authority  of  Megasthenes 

Y      y       \      that    in    his    time    (306-298   B.C.)    early 
/         I  I     marriages  prevailed  in  India  in  the  case 

I       ^V       M     of  girls,  who  might  be  wedded  when  seven 
^^  ^^      years  old;   so  that  the  contention   that 
infant  marriage  is  a  comparatively  modern 

institution  in  India  is  untenable. 

What  countenance  the  Hindu  codes  have  given  to  the 

early  marriage  of  girls  will  appear  from  the  following  texts 

cited  by  a  learned  Brahman,  Dr.  J.  N.  Bhattacharjee,  in 

support  of  infant  marriage : 

1.  "So  many  seasons  of  menstruation  as  overtake  a 
maiden  feeling  the  passion  of  love  and  sought  in  marriage 
by  persons  of  suitable  rank,  even  so  many  are  the  beings 
destroyed  by  both  her  father  and  mother :  this  is  a  maxim 
of  law." — See  Bayahhaga,  chap.  xi.  sec.  11. 

2.  Paitinashi  says:  "A  damsel  should  be  given  in 
marriage  before  her  breasts  swell.  But  if  she  have  men- 
struated before  marriage,  both  the  giver  and  the  taker  fall 
into  the  abyss  of  hell :  and  her  father,  grandfather,  and 
great-gi'andfather  are  born  insects  in  ordure."  ^ 

Other  unimpeachable  authorities  bear  out  the  same 
%'iews.  In  the  Angir-dsmriti,  which  treats  of  ceremonial 
defilement  and  penances,  it  is  said  : 

"  There  is  no  atonement  for  a  man  who  has  intercourse 
with  a  Vrishali,"  i.e.  a  woman  who  has  her  courses  before 
marriage,  and  even  contact  through  inadvertence  with  the 

^  Dayaram  Gidunial,  LL.B.,  C.S.,  The  Life  and  Li/e-vwrk  of  Behramji 
if.  Malabari,  p.  246. 

I8l 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

husband  of  such  a  woman  had  to  be  atoned  by  ablution  of 
both  person  and  dress.  It  is  also  expressly  stated  in  the 
same  treatise  that  "  the  father,  mother,  and  elder  brother 
who  tolerate  a  girl  in  her  courses  before  marriage  go  to  hell. 
A  Brahman  who  will  marry  such  a  girl  is  not  to  be  spoken 
of  or  admitted  into  society."  ^ 

If  these  texts  are  accepted  as  authoritative  by  orthodox 
Hindus,  then  the  religious  basis  of  the  custom  of  infant 
marriage  is  undeniable,  and  in  such  a  case  the  Hindu 
reformer's  position  seems  hardly  tenable,  unless  he  is 
prepared  to  stand  up  against  both  Brahmanical  law  and  the 
influential  priesthood  who  uphold  it.  But  as  the  decision  of 
the  question  hinges  upon  authorities  and  upon  Sanskrit 
texts  with  their  interpretations,  there  is  of  course  abun- 
dant room  for  differences  of  opinion  amongst  lawyers  and 
exegetists. 

I  have  before  me  a  pamphlet  by  Professor  Bhandarkar, 
C.I.E.,  entitled  A  Note  on  the  Age  of  Marriage  and  its  Con- 
summation according  to  Hindu  Religious  Law,  published  in 
1891,  when  the  controversy  on  these  subjects  was  at  its 
height.  In  this  pamphlet  infant  marriage,  as  we  under- 
stand it,  is  not  opposed,  as  indeed  it  could  hardly  be  with 
this  text  of  Manu  to  support  it — "  A  man  thirty  years  old 
should  marry  a  girl  pleasing  to  him  of  the  age  of  twelve 
years."  But  the  position  taken  by  Professor  Bhandarkar  is 
that  "  the  Hindu  religious  law  allows  the  consummation  of 
marriage  being  deferred  for  three  years  after  a  girl  attains 
puberty,"  that  the  texts  which  prescribe  the  Garhhddhdna 
ceremony  which  should  immediately  precede  actual  inter- 
course with  the  bride  do  not  require  that  this  ceremony  and 
intercourse  should  come  off  on  the  occasion  of  the  first 
monthly  course,  but  leave  the  matter  indefinite.  Professor 
Bhandarkar's  contention  indeed  seems  to  be  that  though 
infant  marriage  is  unobjectionable,  the  consummation  of 
marriage  may  lawfully  be  deferred  till  the  wife  is  fully 
developed  and  capable  of  bearing  a  vigorous  child. 

Needless  to  say  these  views  did  not  meet  with  general 
acceptance,  and  gave  rise  to  much  angry  polemics.     Oppon- 
ents held  strongly   that  according  to  the  best  authorities 
1  John  Wilson,  D.D,,  F.R,S.,  Indian  Caste,  vol.  i,  p,  365. 
182 


HINDU   SOCIAL   REFORMERS 

the  Garhhddhdna  ceremony  and  intercourse  with  the  bride 
should  follow  the  very  first  proof  of  puberty,  and  could  not 
be  postponed  to  a  later  time  without  incurring  unpardon- 
able sin. 

As  opposed  to  the  practice  of  infant  marriage,  the  laws 
of  Manu  have  been  cited  by  the  late  Sir  Monier  Williams. 

"  A  girl,"  says  Manu,  "  having  reached  the  age  of  puberty 
should  wait  three  years,  but  at  the  end  of  that  time  she 
should  herself  choose  a  suitable  husband." — Manu,  Book  ix. 
verse  90. 

But  Sir  Monier  Williams  himself  admits  that  "  it  is  true 
that  modern  commentators  maintain  that  this  self -choice  is 
only  legal  when  there  are  no  parents  to  give  a  daughter 
away," — an  admission  which  deprives  the  text  of  much  of  its 
seeming  importance. 

The  late  Professor  Max  Miiller,  to  whom  we  were 
accustomed  to  look  for  enlightenment  on  most  matters 
relating  to  ancient  India,  maintained  "  that  infant  marriage 
has  no  sanction  from  either  Sruti  or  Smriti."  "  Manu,"  he 
adds, "  wishes  a  young  man  to  marry  when  he  may  become  a 
grihasta  (householder),  i.e.  when  he  is  about  twenty-four 
years  of  age.  As  to  the  girl,  she  is  to  marry  when  she 
is  fit  for  it,  and  that  may  vary  in  different  climates."^ 
Obviously  the  interpretation  of  fitness  for  marriage  in  the 
case  of  the  girl  is  just  the  very  point  at  issue,  and  Professor 
Max  Miiller,  with  all  his  Sanskrit  learning,  was  of  course 
not  able  to  help  us  to  a  solution  of  the  matter. 

When  the  subject  we  have  been  considering  was  before 
the  Indian  Legislature  in  1871,  and  religious  feeling  was 
greatly  excited  especially  in  Bengal,  the  well-known  Babu 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  of  the  Brahma  sect,  issued  a  circular 
letter  to  a  number  of  European  and  a  few  Native  medical 
men,  asking  for  an  expression  of  opinion  on  the  matter,  from 
a  scientific  point  of  view.  The  opinions  elicited,  which  were 
naturally  in  favour  of  adult  marriage,  are  given  in  extenso 
in  a  volume  on  Indian  Social  Reform,  published  by  Messrs. 
Thompson  &  Co.,  Madras.  Physiological  considerations 
necessarily  dominated  the  views  of  the  physicians,  but  there 
was  some  ill-considered  writing  indulged  in  about  racial 
^  Life  of  Behramji  M.  Maldbari,  p.  202. 
183 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

deterioration  and  national  decay  resulting  from  the  custom 
of  infant  marriage.  As,  however,  the  opinions  on  this  special 
point  were  not  based  on  any  actual  data  whatsoever,  their 
scientific  value  was  not  very  high,  and  some  of  the  writers, 
more  especially  Dr.  D.  B.  Smith,  were  conscious  of  this  fact. 
The  Brahmans  on  their  part  thought,  as  they  have  long 
done,  that  in  the  Indian  climate,  and  under  the  usual  joint- 
family  system  obtaining  in  their  country,  the  fit  time  for  a 
girl's  marriage  is  the  attainment  of  puberty. 

Whatever  room  there  may  be  for  discussion  upon  this 
delicate  point  between  reformers  and  Pandits,  we  may  take 
it  that  general  agreement,  as  a  result  of  any  such  contro- 
versy, is  neither  likely  nor  possible. 

Meanwhile  the  weight  of  immemorial  custom  is  on  the  side 
of  infant  marriage,  and  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  fashion 
has  a  tendency  now  to  become  even  more  widespread  than 
heretofore,  owing  partly  to  a  spirit  of  revolt  against  innova- 
tions backed  by  non-Hindus,  partly  to  a  desire  of  the  lower 
castes  to  imitate  their  betters,  but  more  than  all  to  the 
increasing  stringency  of  the  matrimonial  market.  Excep- 
tions, however,  are  not  unknown  amongst  certain  castes, 
the  Kulin  Brahmans  of  Bengal  for  example ;  it  having  been 
ruled  amongst  them  that  "  if  the  daughters  of  the  first  and 
second  subdivisional  classes  of  Bhanga  Kulinas  cannot  be 
given  in  marriage  to  husbands  of  their  own  classes,  they 
must  remain  unmarried."  ^ 

Infant  marriage  in  India,  be  it  remembered,  is  an  alto- 
gether different  thing  from  what  infant  marriage  if  practised 
in  Europe  would  be.  For  the  comprehension  of  this  very 
real  distinction  it  has  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  India 
after  the  wedding  ceremony  has  been  duly  performed  the 
infant  bride  may  still  dwell  with  her  parents  for  a  while. 
It  is  true  that  she  is  actually  transferred  to  the  husband's 
home  at  a  very  early  age ;  but  then  the  husband  is  usually  a 
boy,  and  the  husband's  home  is  more  often  than  not  in  a 
joint-family  establishment  consisting  of  a  large  number  of 
persons  or  groups  ruled  and  managed  by  an  elderly  female. 
Into  this  large  household  the  child  comes  as  a  stranger,  yet 
heartily  welcomed  by  the  inmates,  and  if  not  cursed  with 
^  Dr.  John  Wilson,  Indian  Caste,  vol.  ii.  p.  207. 
184 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

unamiable  qualities,  she  is  likely  enough  to  be  happy.  Un- 
fortunately, it  often  happens  that  girls  being  destined,  under 
the  infant-marriage  customs,  to  leave  the  shelter  of  the 
paternal  roof  at  a  tender  age,  their  fond  but  foolish  mothers 
spoil  them  by  over-indulgence  while  stUl  at  home,  with  the 
result  that  they  pass  to  the  care  of  the  mother-in-law  to  be 
trained  and  broken  into  habits  of  usefulness,  a  process  which 
may  be,  and  no  doubt  often  is,  attended  with  bitter  tears  and 
many  hardships.  But  if  the  picture  which  Miss  Noble  gives 
us,  of  the  affectionate  reception  and  tender  treatment  of  the 
child-bride  in  a  Hindu  household,  be  a  fairly  accurate  one, 
and  Miss  Noble  speaks  from  personal  observation,  we  may 
in  ordinary  cases  reserve  our  compassion,  and  unconcernedly 
leave  the  child-wife  to  find  her  proper  place  in  the  house- 
hold to  which  her  husband  belongs.^ 

The  premature  consummation  of  the  marriage  of  Hindu 
girls  under  the  system  we  are  considering  is  undoubtedly 
a  very  real  objection  to  it,  causing  personal  suffering  and 
permanent  injury  in  too  many  instances.  That  the  Hindu 
lawgivers  desired  to  place  some  restraint  upon  the  too  early 
consununation  of  infant  marriage  may  be  inferred  from  the 
fact  that  in  the  Angirasmriti  it  is  laid  down  that  "  the 
chandrayana^  penance  ought  to  be  performed  by  all  who 
eat  in  the  house  of  a  woman  who  had  become  pregnant 
before  she  is  ten  years  of  age."  But  disapproval  so  ex- 
pressed could  not  have  much  effect  in  restraining  brutal 
passions,  and  it  is  gratifying  to  know  that  since  Mr. 
Malabari's  agitation,  and  the  public  controversies  already 
referred  to,  the  British  Government  in  India  has  found 
itself  in  a  position  to  afford  a  certain  amount  of  protection 
to  child-brides  by  an  Act  (passed  on  the  19th  March  1891) 
in  which  it  was  laid  down  that  the  age  of  consent  should  at 
the  lowest  be  twelve  years, — an  age  which,  the  climate  of 
the  country  and  the  habits  of  the  people  being  kept  in  view, 
seems  an  adequate  minimum  at  present.  The  passing  of 
this  measure  was  productive  of  very  sore  feelings  on  the 
part  of  the  Hindus  generally  and  especially  in  Bengal,  as 
being  an  unnecessary  interference  with  their  customs  and 

1  The  Web  of  Indian  Life,  pp.  34-36. 
*  Vide  supra,  p.  48.    • 

185 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

their  religion,  and  I  know  that  even  Europeans  have  re- 
garded it  as  a  piece  of  unwise  legislation.  However,  its 
educative  effect  will,  I  have  no  doubt,  be  good  in  the  long- 
run,  and  if  it  prevents  needless  sufifering  to  innocent  children 
it  is  certainly  deserving  of  commendation. 

In  connection  with  the  subject  of  early  marriages  in 
India,  the  following  extracts  relative  to  Western  Europe, 
particularly  Italy  and  France,  at  the  time  of  the  Ee- 
naissance,  will  not,  I  think,  be  without  interest : — 

"  Very  frequently  the  *  best '  marriages  were 
negotiated  by  intermediaries  more  or  less  obliging, 
relatives  or  friends.  Princes  and  princesses  were 
married  through  the  good  offices  of  diplomatists. 
Indeed,  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  Court  did  quite  a 
respectable  trade  in  match-making,  for  a  consideration. 

"But  after  all  the  task  of  marrying  his  daughter 
was  essentially  and  especially  one  for  the  father. 

"  For  the  most  part,  the  father  would  be  only  too 
glad  to  wash  his  hands  of  the  business.  In  every  case 
he  was  in  a  hurry  to  bring  matters  to  a  head,  and 
believed  that  in  losing  no  time  he  was  acting  in  the 
interest  of  his  child.  She  was  to  belong  wholly  to 
another  household,  since  it  was  a  woman's  lot  to  belong 
to  her  husband,  and  so  it  was  well  for  her  to  enter 
upon  her  new  life  as  early  as  possible,  before  she  had 
formed  ideas  of  her  own,  and  at  an  age  when  the 
paternal  household  would  not  yet  have  set  its  stamp 
indelibly  upon  her. 

"  In  distinguished  families,  betrothal  was  by  no 
means  unusual  at  the  age  of  two  or  three.  At  this 
tender  age  Vittoria  Colonna  was  betrothed  to  the 
Marquis  of  Pescara. 

"  Consummation  usually  took  place  at  the  age  of 
twelve.  That  was  a  favourite  age  with  the  husbands ; 
though,  according  to  the  best  judges,  fifteen  was  the 
age  when  the  physical  charms  were  at  their  best,  and 
the  soul  was  most  malleable — a  view  dating  as  far 
back  as  Hesiod  and  Aristotle.  .  .  . 

"  In  vain  did  the  French  physicians  implore  the  men 

in  mercy  to  have  a  little  patience,  beseech  them  to  wait 

at  least  until  the  fourteenth  year :  they  demurred,  for 

it  was  humiliating  for  a  father  to  have  a  fifteen-year- 

i86 


HINDU  SOCIAL   REFORMERS 

old  daughter  on  his  hands :  at  sixteen  they  would  have 
called  it  a  catastrophe.  Champier,  one  of  the  gravest 
of  writers,  proposed  that  after  the  age  of  sixteen  young 
women  should  be  provided  with  husbands  by  the  State, 
on  the  lines  of  Plato's  system.  Some  parents  betrayed 
such  haste  to  get  their  girls  off  their  hands  that  they 
anticipated  the  ceremony,  handing  them  over  to  their 
husbands-elect  on  the  strength  of  a  mere  promise  of 
fidelity."! 

Infant  marriage  amongst  Hindus  invites  further  investiga- 
tion. To  say  that  it  rests  on  the  Hindu  religious  law  is 
neither  sufficient  nor  satisfactory.  We  desire  to  know  more 
of  its  origin  and  of  the  advantages  it  offers,  for  without 
some  inherent  recommendations,  it  would  not  have  been  so 
widely  adopted  as  it  has  been  in  India.  Leaving  then  the 
Hindu  law  out  of  sight  for  the  moment  in  order  to  view  the 
matter  on  its  own  merits,  we  find  it  stated  by  its  advocates 
that  infant  marriage  has  done  an  incalculable  amount  of 
good,  inasmuch  as  it  has  prevented  the  immorality  which 
admittedly  prevailed  when  in  some  remote  age  adult  marriage 
was  the  custom  in  India.  They  also  deny  that  in  practice 
it  is  attended  with  the  sufferings  and  hardships  which  out- 
siders naturally  attribute  to  it,  although  there  is  no  denying 
that  instances  of  such  suffering  and  hardship  do  occasionally 
occur  and  even  come  to  public  knowledge  in  various  ways, 
sometimes  through  the  police  courts.  Both  these  pleas  may 
be  just,  and  I  have  no  wish  to  controvert  them ;  but  they 
are  certainly  not  exhaustive,  and  though  I  am  an  outsider 
I  take  the  liberty  of  offering  the  following  suggestions  as  to 
the  circumstances  and  considerations  which  have  favoured 
the  establishment  of  the  practice  of  infant  marriage  in  India, 
and  have  even  specially  stimulated  it  within  more  recent 
years. 

To  my  mind,  then,  after  a  study  of  the  controversies 
which  have  raged  round  the  question,  infant  marriages  are 
and  have  been  encouraged  by  the  following  causes : — 

1.  Priestly  greed. — Life,  especially  infant  life,  being  very 
uncertain,  the  earlier  the  ceremony  of  marriage  is  performed 

^  R.  de  Maulde  la  Claviere,  The  Women  of  the  Benaissance,  translated 
by  George  Herbert  Ely,  pp.  25-28. 

187 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

the  surer  is  the  Brahman  of  his  fees,  and  the  same  applies 
to  the  Garbhadhana  ceremony. 

2.  Alleged  female  frailty. — The  deeply  engrained  belief 
in  India  that  women  are  by  nature  utterly  depraved 
naturally  suggests  a  very  early  marriage,  as  that  alone  could 
ensure  the  bride  reaching  her  husband  in  a  state  of  physical 
purity. 

3.  The  constant  splitting  up  of  castes  mto  sections  hetween 
whom  marriage  is  not  allowed. — This  ever-increasing  sub- 
division of  the  castes  has  an  obvious  tendency  to  narrow 
the  marriage  market  and  to  stimulate  the  competition  of 
parents  seeking  suitable  alliances  for  their  girls,  who,  as 
explained  already,  must  be  provided  with  husbands  before 
attaining  puberty.  In  support  of  this  contention  I  may 
state  that  I  have  been  informed  by  the  best  authorities 
that  it  is  not  an  uncommon  thing  for  a  desirable  man  to 
have  overtures  of  marriage  made  to  him  (or  his  guardians, 
if  he  be  a  minor)  while  his  wife  is  breathing  her  last,  and 
certainly  before  her  body  has  been  cremated.  One  such 
instance  I  learned  direct  from  the  lips  of  the  eligible  youth 
concerned. 

4.  Poverty  and  rapacity. — In  those  castes,  and  there  are 
a  few  such,  wherein  fathers  or  guardians  are  permitted  to 
receive  money — really  purchase  money — from  the  bride- 
groom's family,  the  desire  to  obtain  the  price  would  be  a 
direct  inducement  to  hasten  the  wedding. 

5.  The  marriage  brokers. — The  professional  match- 
makers whose  business  it  is  to  discover  suitable  husbands 
for  girls,  may  be  trusted  to  exert  all  their  persuasive  powers 
to  effect  early  marriages,  for  life  being  uncertain  the  sooner 
the  ceremonies  are  performed  the  more  certain  the  brokers' 
fees. 

6.  Fashion  and  rivalry. — Fashion,  that  terrible  task- 
mistress,  having  decided  that  early  marriages  are  proper,  what 
woman  would  not  uphold  the  custom  ?  ^  When  any  post- 
ponement of  the  marriage  of  a  daughter  beyond  the  age  of 
puberty  is  orthodoxly  impossible,  and  when  an  approach  to  that 

^  The  force  of  fashion  lias  made  child  marriage  common  even  amongst 
some  Muhammadans  in  India,  although  there  is  no  diflSculty  under  Islam 
about  the  remarriage  of  widows. 

i88 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

critical  period  would  seem  to  imply  a  difficulty  in  obtaining 
a  bridegroom,  involving  a  reflection  upon  the  status  of  the 
girl's  family,  what  wonder  that  early  marriages  are  so 
common. 

7.  Feminine  love  of  excitement. — This  weakness,  universal 
and  very  imperious  too,  finds  lively  gratification  in  the 
ceremonies,  reunions,  processions,  and  displays  of  the 
elaborate  and  often  costly  Hindu  betrothal  and  marriage 
ceremonies,  and  the  festivities  which  occupy  not  one  but 
many  days,  weeks  perhaps,  and  permit  of  a  degree  of 
freedom  of  intercourse  not  known  at  other  times. 

8.  Feminine  yearning  for  power  within  the  domestic 
circle. — Mothers-in-law,  aunts-in-law,  and  sistens-in-law 
dwelling  in  a  joint-family  home  are  all  equally  desirous 
that  the  brides  who  are  to  come  and  share  the  home  with 
them  should  be  children,  indeed  young  children  amenable 
to  discipline  and  motherly  handling.  Probably  this  hand- 
ling is  at  times  more  severe  than  absolutely  necessary. 

9.  Carncdity. — By  no  means  the  least  important  or  least 
powerful  of  the  influences  which  make  for  child  marriage 
is  the  lust  of  men,  for  be  it  remembered  that  the  Hindu 
widower  may  remarry  over  and  over  again,  and  at  any 
age  can  have  a  child-bride.  Moreover,  if  one  wife  fails 
to  bring  him  issue  he  may  marry  a  second  one,  while  the 
joint-family  system  relieves  him  from  the  inconveniences 
which  might  have  been  his  lot  under  other  circumstances, 
since  the  young  wife  is  not  necessarily  called  upon  to  order 
and  manage  the  household.  Her  elders  do  that  and  also 
help  the  inexperienced  child-wife  to  rear  her  ofifspring. 

10.  The  fairly  successful  suppression  by  the  British 
Government  of  the  once  very  common  practice  of  female 
infanticide  is  also  a  fact,  perhaps  in  some  cases  an  im- 
portant one,  in  the  encouragement  of  early  marriages.  The 
number  of  girls  in  the  matrimonial  market  has  thus 
increased,  and  as  a  husband  has  to  be  found  for  every  girl, 
the  competition  for  desirable  bridegrooms  has  become  more 
keen,  with  the  result  of  lowering  the  age  of  matrimony. 

No  one  who  has  lived  in  India  and  kept  his  eyes  and 
ears  open,  no  one  who,  without  visiting  India,  has  read  any- 
thing of  what  I  may  call  zenana  literature,  can  have  failed 

189 


OF  TMf 

UNIVERSitV 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

to  become  aware  of  many  cases  illustrative  of  the  extreme 
cruelty,  evil  effects,  and  lifelong  suffering  resulting  from 
the  infant-marriage  system,  involving,  as  it  does,  in  the  eyes 
of  Western  peoples,  a  gross  wrong,  since  the  infants  given 
in  marriage  are  far  too  young  to  be  really  parties  to  the 
contract. 

Moreover,  there  are  reformers  who,  while  making  the 
most  of  these  facts,  insist  further  that  over  and  above 
the  wrongs  and  sufferings  of  individuals,  under  the  infant- 
marriage  system,  is  the  far  larger  and  more  important 
question  of  the  deterioration  of  the  race.  It  is  held  by 
these  reformers  that  where  child  marriage  prevails,  the 
offspring  of  such  unions  must  necessarily  be  puny  and 
degenerate.  This  may  be  true,  but  nevertheless  nature  does 
to  a  great  degree  neutralise  the  evil  by  killing  off  the 
degenerate  early  issue  of  immature  parents.  It  cannot  be 
denied,  I  think,  that  Hindus  of  all  classes  throughout  India 
are,  as  a  whole,  well  formed  and  well  grown,  and,  given 
sufficient  food,  are  capable  of  enduring  quite  as  much 
prolonged  physical  exertion  as  the  peoples  of  most  other 
countries. 

In  view  of  the  Hindu  scriptural  basis  of  infant  marriage, 
and  with  so  many  other  causes  to  bolster  it  up,  it  does  not 
appear  to  me  that  the  practice  in  question  is  likely  to 
undergo  any  change  in  the  near  future.  And  the  Legislature 
cannot  wisely  do  much  more  than  it  has  already  done  for 
the  discouragement  of  the  custom. 

It  is  true  that  infant  marriage,  when  the  bridegroom 
may  be  of  any  age,  is  directly  responsible  for  a  large  pro- 
portion of  widowhoods ;  but  the  custom  at  least  gives  every 
girl  a  husband,  which  is  far  from  being  the  case  in  the 
"  catch-as-catch-can  "  system  of  the  West.  If  we  weep  over 
the  Hindu  widows  condemned  to  perpetual  widowhood,  we 
should  not  forget  the  old  maids  of  the  West,  equally  con- 
demned, by  the  stress  and  strain  of  an  age  of  economic 
conflict,  to  a  life  of  single  unblessedness. 


190 


HINDU   SOCIAL   EEFOEMERS 

— continued 

Section  V. — Enforced  widowhood. 


♦ 


^p^     CCORDING  to  a  custom  which  we  know  existed 

I     ^       in  India  at  least  as  far  back   as  the   fourth 

H^^^^     century  B.C.,  the  Hindu  widow  was  required  to 

I    4.    ■     mount  the  funeral  pyre  of  her  dead  husband 

^        *     and  be  cremated  along  with  his  corpse.     If  the 

husband  died,  at  a  distant  place,  the  widow  was, 

none  the  less,  to  be  burned  alive  on  a  pyre  by  herself. 

For  this  practice,  known  as  Suttee  or  Satiy  the  reason 
assigned  by  Strabo  {circa  B.C.  31-a.d.  21)  was  the  necessity 
of  protecting  Indian  husbands  against  their  wicked  wives, 
Indian  women  being  much  addicted  to  poisoning  their  lords 
with  a  view  to  other  alliances. 

Sati  would  certainly  be  a  very  effective  protection 
for  husbands  against  such  murderous  practices,  because 
the  death  of  the  husband  would  mean  that  of  the  wife 
also. 

Eef erring  in  another  book^  to  this  explanation  by 
the  Eoman  geographer  of  the  origin  of  sati^  I  felt  con- 
strained to  remark  that  it  was,  no  doubt,  an  unmerited 
calumny  upon  Indian  women;  but  I  find,  not  without 
surprise,  that  the  same  accusation  is  levelled  at  them  by 
their  own  countrymen  even  at  the  present  day.^ 

Under  many  easily  conceivable  circumstances  it  would 
not  be  either  desirable  or  possible  to  enforce  the  cruel  law 
of  sati,  and  as  an  alternative  it  was  ruled,  probably  from  the 
earhest  times,  that  the  woman  who  did  not  undergo  crema- 
tion with  her  dead  husband  should  be  compelled  to  lead  a 

'  Indian  Life  Relirfious  and  Social,  p.  165. 
^  The  Life  and  Life-work  of  Behramji  M.  Malabari,  pp.  63,  64. 
191 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

life  of  rigid  self-denial  and  suffer  social  humiliations  almost 
intolerable. 

To  the  sati,  "  the  virtuous  wife,"  i.e.  the  wife  who  elected 
to  perish  in  the  flames  which  were  to  consume  her  husband's 
body,  great  honour  was  paid ;  and  high-born,  high-spirited 
women  did  not  hesitate  to  face  the  fire  rather  than  the 
degrading  alternative  of  the  widow's  miserable  life.  Con- 
sequently until  the  practice  of  widow  burning  was  made  a 
punishable  offence  by  a  British-Indian  enactment  passed 
by  Lord  William  Bentinck  in  1829,  numerous  satis  occurred 
every  year  all  over  India.^  And  long  after  the  date  of  the 
ordinance  in  question  the  rite  was  freely  practised  in 
Hindu  States  outside  the  jurisdiction  of  the  British  power. 
One  instance  of  this  kind  is  the  sati  which  accompanied  the 
cremation  of  the  body  of  Maharajah  Kanjit  Singh  of  the 
Punjab  in  1839,  when  four  of  his  wives  and  seven  female 
slaves  were  burnt  to  death  on  the  funeral  pyre  with  the 
corpse  of  their  lord  and  master. 

Aiding  and  abetting  the  performance  of  sati  having, 
under  British  law,  been  declared  a  criminal  offence,  it  has 
now  become  very  rare.  A  few  cases  of  sati  do,  however, 
still  occur,  and  some  have  been  reported  within  quite  recent 
years.  One,  for  example,  was  carried  out  in  Behar  in 
October  1904,  and  resulted  in  six  men  being  sentenced  to 
various  terms  of  rigorous  imprisonment,  varying  from  nine 
months  to  five  years.  In  March  1905,  at  a  village  some 
thirty  miles  from  Ajmere,  a  Hindu  woman  followed  her 
husband's  corpse  to  the  place  of  cremation,  and  when  the 
funeral  pile  was  ready  and  the  dead  body  laid  upon  it  she 
threw  herself  upon  the  corpse.  Some  one,  amidst  the  great 
confusion  and  uproar  which  this  act  occasioned,  ignited  the 
pyre,  and  the  woman,  who  made  no  attempt  to  escape,  was 
burnt  to  death.  Another  sati  took  place  towards  the  latter 
part  of  1905  at  Maypur,  a  village  in  the  Punjab.  A  Hindu 
woman  whose  husband  had  died  two  or  three  years  before, 

^  Sati  ' '  would  also  fall  under  the  definition  of  culpable  homicide  given  in 
the  Indian  Penal  Code,  sec.  299,  though  by  the  5th  exception  appended  to 
sec.  300  it  would  not  amount  to  murder." — "  Legislation  under  Lord  Mayo," 
by  Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen,  being  chap.  viii.  vol.  ii.  of  Sir  W.  W. 
Huut^'8  Life  of  the  Earl  of  Mayo. 

192 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

made  a  funeral  pyre,  set  fire  to  it,  and  committing  herself 
to  the  flames,  died  in  the  presence  of  a  number  of  persons. 

In  1906  a  sati  occurred  in  Cawnpore  and  another  in 
Calcutta.  In  both  cases  the  widows,  quite  young  women, 
set  their  own  clothes  on  fire  and  so  committed  suicide. 

Although  the  rite  of  sati  has  been  practically  suppressed, 
the  alternative,  enforced  widowhood,  with  its  degrading 
accompaniments,  still  remains  in  force  notwithstanding  the 
legislative  permission  accorded,  by  Act  XV.  of  1856,  to  the 
remarriage  of  Hindu  widows. 

However  young  she  may  be,  the  Hindu  widow  has  from 
the  moment  her  husband  dies,  not  only  to  deplore  the  loss 
of  a  companion,  perhaps  a  beloved  companion  and  supporter, 
but  she  has  also  to  take  a  position  of  utter  degradation  in 
the  household  where  formerly  she  had  an  honoured  place. 

In  many  parts  of  India  it  is  customary  a  few  days  after 
the  cremation  of  the  husband  to  perform  what  may  be 
called  the  ceremony  of  formally  degrading  the  widow,  when 
she  has  her  head  shaved  by  the  barber  and  is  deprived  of 
the  use  of  all  her  personal  ornaments.  Ever  after  that  she 
is  condemned  to  sleep,  not  on  a  bed,  but  upon  a  mat  spread 
on  the  floor ;  to  have  but  one  meal  a  day ;  and  to  be  excluded 
very  strictly  from  all  festivities  and  family  gatherings.  Not 
only  is  the  widow  degraded  and  set  aside,  but  her  very 
presence  on  joyful  occasions  becomes  an  actual  offence,  and 
her  mere  shadow  is  in  certain  cases  unpropitious. 

Without  doubt  the  lot  of  the  Hindu  widow  thus  stated 
is  extremely  hard,  and  it  has  afforded  European  women 
writers  material  for  some  very  natural  displays  of  feeling 
and  sentiment  over  the  sufferings  of  their  unfortunate 
Indian  sisters.  But  we  must  be  cautious  neither  to  whoUy 
judge  Indian  institutions  by  European  standards  nor  to 
gauge  the  feelings  of  Indian  women  in  particular  situations 
by  those  of  European  women  if  they  could  now  be  placed  in 
similar  circumstances.  Women  reared  in  the  semi-religious 
atmosphere  of  Hindu  society  are  in  all  probability  able  to 
accept  the  widow's  position  as  the  decree  of  fate,  and  to  bear 
with  equanimity  the  tyranny  of  an  immemorial  custom, 
particularly  when  it  allows  of  no  exceptions  and  is  most 
onerous  in  the  case  of  the  best-born.  The  calamity  of 
N  193 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

widowhood  is  no  doubt  received  by  the  Hinduani  just  as  the 
infliction  of  an  incurable  disease  might  be.  There  is  no  way 
out  of  it,  and  this  fact  almost  compels  patient  endurance. 
Besides,  there  must  be  a  large  proportion  of  cases  in  which 
the  widow  is  too  strong  in  character,  or  too  well  placed,  to 
allow  of  her  humiliation  being  anything  more  than  nominal, 
especially  so  when  she  is  the  mother  of  sons  devoted  to  her, 
or  when  she  is  the  possessor  of  wealth  of  her  own.  Then 
again,  there  must  at  all  times  be  instances  innumerable 
in  which  the  natural  tenderness  of  relations  and  intimate 
friends  greatly  mitigate  or  even  mollify  the  cruelty  of  the 
widow's  situation.  Often  it  is  not  so,  and  then  the  wretched 
sufferers,  according  to  age  and  the  circumstances  of  each 
case,  take  refuge  in  religion ;  are  driven  to  suicide,  or,  when 
very  young,  fall  into  immoral  courses  involving  perhaps 
repeated  infanticides  and  other  heinous  crimes. 

In  this  connection  I  may  cite  the  following  painful  and 
characteristic  instances  reported  in  the  Indian  Spectator, 
a  paper  edited  and  managed  by  natives  : — 

"  The  Hindu  Widow  and  her  Woes. — '  The  Gujarati ' 
reports  a  case  of  infanticide  at  Jetpur  in  Kattywar. 
A  '  high-caste '  widow,  long  suspected  by  the  police 
and  closely  watched  gives  birth  to  a  child.  The  new- 
comer's mouth  is  immediately  stuffed  with  hot  kitchen 
ashes.  Thus  '  religiously  disposed  of '  and  thrust  into 
a  basket  of  rubbish,  its  loving  grandmother  deposits 
the  child  into  the  nearest  river.  The  village  police 
then  come  to  know  about  it. 

"A  very  similar  case  is  reported  to  us  from 
Viramgaum ;  high-caste  widow,  new-born  baby,  and  hot 
ashes,  though  no  mention  is  made  of  the  loving  grand- 
mother or  the  basket  of  rubbish.  Three  persons  are 
implicated  in  the  former  case.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  the  mother  is  very  seldom  a  party  to  the  '  act  of 
merit.'  After  all  it  is  her  child,  flesh  of  her  flesh.  In 
the  Jetpur  widow's  case,  we  may  say  she  is  no  more  a 
murderer  than  is  the  head  of  the  local  police.  The 
father  of  her  unclaimed  child,  whom  your  humane 
English  law  never  thinks  of  calling  to  account,  is  the 
prime  mover  with  the  widow's  parents  and  caste-people 
as  his  accomplices.  So  cleverly  is  the  affair  managed, 
that  hardly  one  case  out  of  twenty  can  be  detected. 
194 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

In  most  cases  the  child  dies  before  birth.  The  patient 
is  removed  far  from  her  home,  on  a  visit  to  a  friend,  or 
on  a  pilgrimage,  and  there  she  is  absolved  of  the  burden 
of  sin.  She  is  lucky  if  she  escapes  with  permanent 
injury  to  the  system,  for  the  village  surgeon  is  but  a 
clumsy  operator.  If  less  lucky,  she  succumbs  under 
the  operation.  But  least  lucky  is  the  widow  whose  case 
does  not  yield  to  the  manipulations  of  the  Ddi.  And 
woe  be  to  her  if  she  belongs  to  a  respectable  family. 
.  Then  they  get  up  a  ceremony  in  her  honour,  what  they 
call  a  cold  Suttee,  they  serve  her  with  the  best  viands, 
they  ply  her  with  sweet  intoxicants,  and  they  cap  her 
last  supper  on  earth  with  something  that  will  settle 
their  business.  The  widow  is  soon  a  cold  Suttee^  and  is 
forthwith  carried  off  to  the  burning  ground, — the  pious 
Hindoo  cannot  keep  a  corpse  in  his  house  ten  minutes. 
This  cold  Suttee  means  a  double  murder.  Let  us  hope 
it  is  a  very  rare  practice.  But  a  case  is  known  where 
the  widow  suspected  foul  play  in  the  midst  of  the 
nocturnal  festivities  in  her  honour.  She  turned 
piteously  to  her  mother  and  asked  to  be  saved,  but  she 
was  thus  urged  in  reply : 

"'Drink,  drink,  my  child,  drink  to  cover  thy 
mother's  shame  and  to  keep  thy  father's  abru  (honour)  ; 
drink  it,  dear  daughter,  see,  I  am  doing  likewise ! '"  ^ 

Infanticides  committed  in  order  to  escape  disgrace  are 
unfortunately  not  unknown  in  the  West;  but  nothing 
analogous  to  the  ceremony  of  the  cold  Suttee  could  be 
possible  outside  India. 

In  strange  contrast  with  the  austere  severity  of  senti- 
ments which  could  culminate  in  the  tragic  rite  of  a  "  cold 
Suttee,"  it  may  be  mentioned  that  sometimes  widows  are 
actually  ericouraged,  as  amongst  the  Tulava  Brahmans  of 
Southern  India,  to  take  to  "prostitution  in  the  name  of 
religion."  ^ 

Regarded  from  any  point  of  view,  the  cremation  of 
Hindu  widows  with  the  bodies  of  their  dead  husbands  was 
a  decidedly  barbarous  practice,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
the  formal  degradation  of  Hindu  widows  and  their  perpetual 

^  Dayaram  Gidumal,  LL.B.,  C.S.,  TJie  Lift  and  Life-work  of  Behramji 
if.  Malabari,  pp.  cii  and  ciii. 

'  Dr.  John  Wilson,  Caste  in  India,  vol.  ii.  p.  70. 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

exclusion  from  the  ordinary  pleasures  of  life.  Either 
practice,  if  justifiable  at  all,  can  be  so  only  on  the  plea  which 
has  actually  been  put  forward,  that  as  a  rule  Hindu  wives 
desirous  of  forming  new  alliances  would  not  hesitate  to 
poison  their  husbands,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  commonly 
did  so  in  the  days  before  the  sati  and  its  alternative  were 
enforced. 

This  charge  of  old  standing,  dating  back  at  least  to  the 
beginning  of  our  era,  and  unhappily  not  yet  withdrawn, 
would,  if  true,  reflect  so  seriously  upon  the  virtue  and 
moral  character  of  Indian  women,  and  at  the  same  time 
point  so  unmistakably  to  gross  tyranny  on  the  part  of  the 
men  driving  their  wives  to  deliberate  murder,  that  I 
prefer  to  regard  the  accusation  in  question  as  at  least 
not  proven.  We  are  therefore  constrained  to  look  for  other 
causes. 

The  roots  of  the  custom  known  as  the  sati  are  to  be 
sought  in  a  barbarous  age  at  a  time  when  it  was  considered 
— as  indeed  it  is  at  the  present  day  amongst  certain  West 
African  and  other  tribes — that  the  spirit  of  a  departed 
chief  or  other  prominent  personage  should  be  attended  and 
ministered  to  by  the  spirits  of  his  wives  and  slaves. 

Human  sacrifices  being  once  established  as  part  of  the 
funeral  rites  of  chiefs  and  kings  would,  in  ordinary  course, 
be  regarded  as  a  mark  or  proof  of  rank,  power,  position,  or 
influence.  Every  family  which  claimed  to  be  of  any  im- 
portance would  desire  to  include  human  sacrifices  amongst 
the  funeral  ceremonies  adopted  by  it;  and  if  it  were 
fit  that  some  near  and  dear  to  him  in  life  should  attend 
the  deceased  in  spirit-land,  who  more  necessary  or  acceptable 
to  him  than  his  wives  and  female  slaves. 

Fashion  and  the  rivalry  of  tribes,  clans,  and  families 
would  tend  to  make  the  practice  of  widow  burning  a 
comparatively  common  one,  though  at  no  time  could  it 
have  been  general. 

Thus  established  in  the  old-time  and  hallowed  by  hoary 
custom  as  an  indication  of  superior  respectability,  widow 
burning  would,  in  later  and  less  barbarous  times,  be  duly 
encouraged  and  justified  by  convenient  religious  texts, 
extolling  the  virtue  of  the  willing  victim  and  exalting  the 

196 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

rewards  of  her  self-sacrifice.  Common-sense  reasons  would 
also  be  given  in  support  of  an  obviously  inhuman  custom, 
and  the  poisoning  propensities  of  Hindu  wives,  which  may 
have  had  some  foundation  of  truth,  would  be  one  of  these, 
appealing  very  strongly  to  the  cowardly  selfishness  of 
men. 

Certainly  saii  relieves  the  dead  man's  family  from  the 
burden  of  maintaining  his  widow  or  widows,  a  fact  to  which 
that  famous  jurist  Sir  Henry  Maine  attached  special  im- 
portance, as  having  tended  greatly  to  perpetuate  the  cruel 
custom. 

After  having  been  practised  in  India  for  over  two 
thousand  years,  widow  burning  has  been  suppressed  by  the 
strong  hand  of  a  foreign  Government ;  but  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  even  now  it  would  be  revived  in 
many  parts  of  the  country  if  the  laws  against  it  were 
abrogated  or  suspended,  and  it  is  evident  that  while  such 
feelings  on  this  point  continue  to  exist  amongst  Hindus 
generally,  any  considerable  amelioration  of  the  condition 
of  the  widows  is  yet  afar  off. 

However,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  at  least  some  Hindus 
are  beginning  to  realise  sympathetically,  in  a  way  hitherto 
unknown,  the   unmerited   tribulations  and   sorrows  of  the 
widows  of  their  community.    As  the  outcome  of  this  senti- 
ment a  movement  to  countenance  widow  remarriage  has 
come  into  existence ;  but  it  meets  with  strenuous  opposition 
from  the  orthodox  priesthood  and  from  the  great  body  of 
women,  who  look  to  the  priests  for  guidance.     Consequently, 
although  there  have  been  and  are  many  individual  advocates 
for  widow  remarriage    throughout    India,  although    there 
are  many   Widow  Bemarriage  Associations  in  ^he  country, 
and  matrimonial  advertisei-s  in  the  interest  of   the  same 
cause  are  not  wanting,  yet  the  conservative  opposition  to 
the  movement  is  so  strong  that  the  results  up  to  the  present 
time  are  small,  though  as  a  beginning  they  may  be  considered 
encouraging.    For  example,  one  Widow  Bemarriage  Associa- 
tion of  Upper  India  was  recently  able  to  report  that  under 
its  auspices  forty-seven   marriages   of  widows  had   taken 
place  in  one  year,  most  of  these  amongst  respectable  Brah- 
man families.      But  even  in  small  sects  like  that  of  the 

197 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

Brahmas  which  have  cut  themselves  off  from  orthodox 
Hinduism,  the  cause  of  the  widows  has  had  little  if  any 
success. 

As  already  stated,  the  remarriage  of  a  Hindu  widow  is 
permitted  by  British  Indian  law,  so  that  no  legal  objec- 
tion to  such  a  step  exists ;  but  the  religious  sentiment  or 
prejudice  of  the  Hindu  community  unfortunately  renders 
the  law  almost  a  dead  letter. 

Actuated  by  motives  not  always  meritorious,  some  few 
persons,  defying  the  public  opinion  of  their  society,  do, 
however,  under  the  segis  of  British  law,  venture  to  act  up 
to  their  professions  in  respect  to  the  propriety  of  widow 
remarriage,  and  such  marriages  are  duly  chronicled  by  the 
Indian  Press,  as  in  the  following  cases,  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  others : — 

"A  widow  remarriage  of  an  advanced  type  took 
place  in  the  City  under  the  auspices  of  some  Arya 
gentlemen  on  Tuesday  evening.  Both  bridegroom  and 
'  bride '  are  of  a  mature  age,  and  the  latter  has  a 
child  by  a  previous  husband." — Tribune  (Lahore),  17th 
February  1894. 

"A  widow  marriage  took  place  at  Bhera  on  the 
19th  January  1894  between  Bhai  Hira  Singh  Bohra, 
aged  about  35,  and  Raj  Devi,  a  Khatri  widow,  aged  20. 
It  was  also  a  case  of  intermarriage.  It  was  chiefly 
owing  to  the  efforts  of  Malak  Hans  Raj  Anand,  who, 
as  secretary  of  the  Anand  Sabba,  takes  a  deep  interest 
in  social  reform  questions.  That  he  was  successful  in 
persuading  even  the  Sanatan  Pandita  to  take  part  in 
the  marriage  is  a  sign  of  the  times." — Tribune  (Lahore), 
21st  February  1894. 

"Under  the  auspices  of  the  local  Arya  Samaj,  a 
widow  marriage  of  considerable  public  interest  has 
been  performed  in  Amritsar.  The  bride  is  the  .widowed 
daughter  of  a  zealous  Arya,  and  the  bridegroom  a 
respectable  young  man  of  Kaithal.  A  large  number 
of  guests  were  present  at  the  marriage." — Pioneer  Mail, 
(Allahabad),  January  1906. 

If  I  am  not  misinformed,  parties  contracting  these 
marriages  usually  suffer  such  serious  persecution  of  many 
kinds   that  their   fate  has  been  a  warning,  instead  of  an 

198 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

encouragement,  to  others  disposed  to  disregard  the  strongly 
maintained  views  of  the  caste  to  which  they  belong.  Some 
fifteen  years  ago  it  came  to  my  knowledge  that  an  influential 
and  very  learned  Bengali  gentleman  had  been  instrumental 
in  effecting  some  fifty  widow  marriages,  with  the  result  that 
he  had  the  pleasure  of  supporting  all  the  happy  couples, 
for  it  was  only  to  secure  this  kind  support,  and  on  condition 
of  receiving  it,  that  bridegrooms  could  be  found  for  the 
widows.  There  is  no  denying  that  caste  persecution  in  such 
cases  has  ample  justification  in  the  precepts  of  the  Hindu 
law-books,  for  Manu  has  laid  down  that  amongst  the  persons 
to  be  carefully  shunned  are  "  the  husband  of  a  twice- 
married  woman  and  the  remover  of  dead  bodies."  Yet 
some  instances,  very  rare  ones  it  is  true,  are  known  in 
which  the  remarriage  of  widows  is  actually  permitted,  for 
example  amongst  the  Audichya,  Barada,  and  the  Sinduvala 
Brahmans  of  Gujarat;  while  the  Tage  Brahmans  of  the 
Punjab  take  widows  of  their  own  caste  as  concubines,  and 
so  do  the  Brahmans  of  Nepal.  Brahman  widows  are  also 
known  to  find  husbands  outside  their  caste,  and  even  outside 
their  creed.  On  this  point  the  Eev.  J.  Vans  Taylor  writes 
in  connection  with  certain  Gujarati  Brahmans:  "Widows 
are  at  once  a  loss  to  the  population  and  their  own  castes. 
But  Brahmanis  sometimes  become  feeders  to  other  castes. 
Many  Kajputs,  Kolis,  Kulambis,  and  Musalmans  (I  know 
of  one  case  even  of  a  Bhangi)  get  Brahmanic  widows  as 
either  their  second  or  secondary  wives."  ^ 

To  sum  up  the  present  situation.  Under  British  law 
the  Hindu  widow  may  not  be  sacrificed  or  sacrifice  herself 
on  the  funeral  pyre;  she  may,  if  she  can  find  a  partner, 
marry  again.  But  in  obedience  to  the  rules  of  immemorial 
custom,  her  second  husband,  herself,  and  any  children  bom 
to  them  would  in  such  a  case  in  all  probability  be  outcasted, 
an  outlook  which  few  care  to  face. 

As  far  as  legislation  goes,  the  British  Government  seems 
to  have  done  what  it  could  for  the  Hindu  widow,  but  out- 
side the  law  much  may  reasonably  be  done  by  the  State  for 
these  imfortunates,  as  I  shall  point  out  later  on. 

1  Dr.  J.  Wilson,  Indian  Caste,  vol.  ii.  p.  122. 


199 


HINDU 
SOCIAL  KEFOEMEKS 

— continued 

Section  VI. — Temple  women. 

ERTAIN  Hindu  reformers 
have  recently  invoked  the 
interference  of  the  authori- 
ties to  abolish  the  custom, 
common  in  some  parts  of 
India,  of  marrying  young 
girls  to  Hindu  gods — such 
marriages  being  merely  the  prelude  to  a  state  of  licensed 
prostitution  in  the  service  of  religion.  A  memorial  on 
this  subject  was,  a  few  months  ago,  addressed  to  the 
Government  of  Bombay  by  Dr.  Bhandarkar,  C.I.E.,  of 
Poona,  and  about  one  hundred  other  influential  natives  of 
Western  India,  setting  forth  the  notorious  frequency  of 
this  evil  practice,  and  praying  that  it  may  in  future  be 
officially  regarded  as  an  offence  punishable  under  the  Indian 
Penal  Code.  The  memorialists  also  petitioned  that  the 
minors  wedded  to  idols  should  be  "placed  in  the  care  of 
proper  guardians  or  in  mission  orphanages,"  a  very  significant 
and  flattering  testimony  to  the  high  esteem  in  which  these 
establishments  are  held  by  some  liberal-minded  Hindus. 

With  the  caution  which,  as  a  rule,  characterises  the  action 
of  the  British  authorities  in  India  where  matters  affecting 
the  religious  sentiments  of  the  subject  peoples  are  concerned, 
the  Governor  of  Bombay  gave  orders  for  a  preliminary 
series  of  inquiries  to  be  carried  out  by  certain  Government 
officers,  with  the  view  of   obtaining  competent  opinion  in 

2CX) 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

regard  to  the  law  as  applicable  to  such  cases,  and  of 
ascertaining  the  state  of  Hindu  public  opinion  on  the  points 
raised  by  the  memorialists.  "We  may  patiently  await  the 
result,  confident  that  if  a  fair  proportion  of  the  better  class 
of  Hindu  society  declare  against  the  practice,  the  weight  of 
the  British  Government  will  be  thrown  on  the  same  side. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  state  that  religious  prostitution 
is  not  an  institution  of  yesterday,  nor  peculiar  to  India.  It 
was  very  common  in  ancient  times  amongst  the  Lydians ; 
and  in  Syria,  Armenia,  Chaldsea,  and  Egypt,  a  similar,  or  even 
more  shameless  cultus  of  unchastity  was  known.  "  Devoted 
women  "  attached  to  the  great  sanctuaries  were  familiar  even 
to  the  Hebrews.  "  Religious  prostitution  was  not  confined 
to  the  temples  of  Astarte,  nor  to  the  worship  of  female 
divinities.  Numbers  xxv.  1-5  connects  it  with  Baal-peor ; 
Amos  ii.  7,  Deuteronomy  xxiiL  17,  18,  etc.,  show  that  in 
Israel  similar  practices  infected  even  the  worship  of  Yahwe 
(Jehovah).  There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  the  cultus  of 
Astarte  was  saturated  with  these  abominations."  ^ 

In  India  the  religious  prostitutes  (devidasis)  are  conse- 
crated to  the  deity  to  whose  temple  they  are  attached.  They 
are  carefully  trained  in  the  Terpsichorean  art  and  in  music, 
and  are  taught  how  to  make  themselves  agreeable  and  attrac- 
tive. Their  public  duty  is  to  dance  daily  before  the  idol  of 
the  god  and  to  sing  hymns,  often  erotic  in  character,  in  his 
honour.  Certain  allowances  are  made  to  them  from  the 
temple  treasury  to  which  their  earnings  belong. 

"Their  ranks  are  recruited  by  the  purchase  of 
female  children  of  any  caste,  and  also  by  members  of 
certain  Hindu  castes  vowing  to  present  daughters  to 
the  temple  on  recovering  from  illness  or  relief  from 
other  misfortune.  The  female  children  of  dancing- 
women  are  always  brought  up  to  their  mother's  pro- 
fession, and  so  are  the  children  purchased  by  them,  or 
assigned  to  the  temple  service  by  the  free-will  of  their 
parents." — Sherring,  Hindu  Tribes  and  Castes. 

The  existence  of  the  custom  of  devoting  girls  to  the  service 
of  Hindu  temples,  and  all  that  is  involved  in  such  dedication 

'  Encydopccdia  Biblica,  vol.  i.  c.  338. 
20 1 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

is,  of  course,  well  known  to  the  Christian  missionaries  in 
India,  who  naturally  condemn  the  shocking  institution  and 
bewail  the  fate  of  the  girl-victims  of  this  horrid  practice.^ 

Unfortunately,  prostitution  seems  to  be  a  permanent 
institution  all  the  world  over,  and  especially  rampant  in  the 
most  civilised  countries.  It  is  an  evil  over  which  Chris- 
tianity has  apparently  been  unable  to  exercise  any  effective 
check,  and  the  restless  Hindu  reformer  and  the  ardent 
Christian  missionary  may  well  bethink  them  whether,  after 
all,  prostitution  sanctified  by  religion  and  under  recognised 
control  is  not  morally  less  harmful  to  all  concerned  than 
the  prostitution  which,  in  defiance  of  religion  and  law,  not 
only  pervades  the  slums  but  makes  its  flaunting  presence 
unpleasantly  conspicuous  in  the  most  fashionable  thorough- 
fares of  the  populous  cities  of  Europe  and  America.  This 
view  of  the  matter,  though  certainly  very  unconventional, 
may  still  deserve  a  moment's  consideration  from  thinking 
men  and  responsible  legislators. 

^  Amy  Wilson-Carmichael,  Things  as  they  are :  Mission  Work  in  Southern 
India,  chap.  xxiv. 


202 


HINDU  SOCIAL  KEFORMERS 
—corUtntied 

Section  VII. — The  old  and  the  new  woman. 

Life  behind  the  Purdah. — 

O  one  interested  in  India  can  be  unfamiliar 
with  the  words  purdah  (screen)  and  zenana 
(women's  apartment),  both  associated  with  the 
seclusion  of  women  in  that  country,  a  subject 
on  which  much  has  been  written. 

The  visitor  to  India  sees  Hindu  women  of 
the  lower  orders  everj'where;  but  women  of  the  higher 
castes  or  of  moderately  good  social  position  do  not  generally 
appear  in  public  unveiled,  and  as  long  as  they  are  virtuous  or 
reputable,  hold  no  social  intercourse  whatever  with  any  men 
outside  the  family  circle.  Even  within  the  family  circle 
there  are  many  male  membera  with  whom  they  may  not 
so  much  as  speak,  and  before  whom  they  must  not  appear 
unveiled. 

Amongst  the  Muslims,  also,  women  are  kept  in  seclusion, 
in  the  harem. 

Now,  however  we  may  regard  the  matter,  this  seclusion 
is  amongst  both  Hindus  and  Muslims  a  coveted  mark  of 
social  superiority,  and  is  accordingly  highly  appreciated  by 
Indian  women.  It  is  by  no  means  distasteful  to  them,  as 
European  women,  reared  under  quite  other  social  conditions, 
are  prone  to  think.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  within 
recent  years  the  seeds  of  discontent  have  been  introduced 
by  foreign  agencies  into  many  Indian  homes,  and  may  be 
expected  to  bring  forth  fruit  in  due  season. 

From  those  who  have  seen  the  inside  of  Indian  home- 
life,  we  obtain  accounts  and  opinions  diverse  indeed  and,  as 

203 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

might  have  been  expected,  both  highly  appreciative  and 
entirely  the  reverse.  Some  Europeans  writing  on  the 
condition  of  the  female  sex  in  India,  cannot  find  words 
strong  enough  in  which  to  denounce  the  degraded  state  of 
Indian  women,  while  others  find  an  almost  ideal  beauty  in 
the  life  behind  the  purdah. 

A  few  quotations  from  the  works   of  writers  on   the 
subject  will  suffice  to  make  this  point  clear. 

"It  may  be  said  with  truth,"  wrote  the  Abbe 
Dubois  eighty  years  ago,  "  that  so  far  are  the  Hindu 
females  from  being  held  in  that  low  state  of  contempt 

and  degradation  in  which  the  Eev.  repeatedly 

describes  them  in  his  letter,  that,  on  the  contrary, 
they  are  under  much  less  restraint,  enjoy  more  real 
freedom,  and  are  in  possession  of  more  enviable 
privileges  than  the  persons  of  their  sex  in  any  other 
Asiatic  country.  In  fact,  to  them  belong  the  entire 
management  of  their  household,  the  care  of  their 
children,  the  superintendence  of  the  menial  servants, 
the  distribution  of  alms  and  charities.  To  their  charge 
are  generally  intrusted  the  money,  jewels,  and  other 
valuables.  To  them  belongs  the  care  of  procuring 
provisions  and  providing  for  all  expenses.  It  is  they 
also  who  are  charged,  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  their 
husbands,  with  the  most  important  affair  of  procuring 
wives  for  their  sons  and  husbands  for  their  daughters ; 
and,  in  doing  this,  they  evince  a  niceness,  an  attention, 
and  foresight,  which  are  not  certainly  surpassed  in  any 
country ;  while,  in  the  management  of  their  domestic 
business,  they  in  general  show  a  shrewdness,  a  saving- 
ness,  and  an  intelligence  which  would  do  honour  to  the 
best  housewives  in  Europe. 

"In  the  meanwhile,  the  austerity  and  roughness 
with  which  they  are  outwardly  treated  in  public,  by 
their  husbands,  is  rather  a  matter  of  form,  and  entirely 
ceases  when  the  husband  and  his  wife  are  in  private. 
It  is  there  that  the  Hindoo  females  assume  all  that 
empire  which  is  everywhere  exercised,  in  civilised 
countries,  by  the  persons  of  their  sex  over  the  male 
part  of  creation ;  find  means  to  bring  them  under  sub- 
jection, and  rule  over  them,  in  several  instances,  with 
a  despotic  sway.  In  short,  although  outwardly  ex- 
posed in  public  to  the  forbidding  and  repulsive  power 
of  an  austere  husband,  they  can  be  considered  in  no 
204 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

other  light  than  as  perfectly  the  mistresses  within  the 
house. 


"  The  authority  of  married  women  within  their 
houses  is  chiefly  exerted  in  preserving  good  order  and 
peace  among  the  persons  who  compose  their  families ; 
and  a  great  many  among  them  discharge  this  important 
duty  with  a  prudence  and  a  discretion  which  have 
scarcely  a  parallel  in  Europe.  I  have  known  families 
composed  of  between  thirty  and  forty  persons,  or  more, 
consisting  of  grown  sons  and  daughters,  all  married 
and  all  having  children,  living  together  under  the 
superintendence  of  an  old  matron — their  mother  or 
mother-in-law.  The  latter,  by  good  management,  and 
by  accommodating  herself  to  the  temper  of  her 
daughters-in-law ;  by  using,  according  to  circumstances, 
firmness  or  forbearance,  succeeds  in  preserving  peace 
and  harmony  during  many  years  amongst  so  many 
females,  who  had  all  jarring  interests,  and  still  more 
jarring  tempers.  I  ask  you  whether  it  would  be 
possible  to  attain  the  same  end,  in  the  same  circum- 
stances, in  our  countries,  where  it  is  scarcely  possible 
to  make  two  women  living  under  the  same  roof  to 
agree  together."  ^ 

Very  different  from  the  good  Abba's  picture  of  Indian 
home-life  is  the  following,  from  the  pen  of  Dr.  Emma 
Eyder  of  Bombay,  who,  in  a  paper  entitled  "The  Little 
Wives  of  India,"  said : 

"  In  coming  to  India  I  expected  to  find  women  and 
girls  that  would  much  resemble  those  I  had  seen  in 
other  tropical  countries — in  Mexico,  Central  America, 
and  on  the  Isthmus  of  Panama — healthy,  with  dark 
faces  and  laughing  bright  eyes.  I  can  never  express 
the  sadness  of  heart  that  I  experienced  when  I  met 
these  half -developed  women,  with  their  look  of  hopeless 
endurance,  their  skeleton-like  arms  and  legs,  and  saw 
them  walking  the  prescribed  number  of  paces  behind 
their  husbands,  with  never  a  smile  on  their  faces.  I 
expected  the  little  girls  in  India  would  be  the  same 
precocious,  strong,  fully  developed  girls  that  I  found 
in  other  tropical  countries;  and  how  great  was  my 

^  The  AbM  J.  A.  Dubois,  missionary  in  Mysore,  Letters  on  the  State  of 
Christianity  in  India,  pp.  182-185.     (London,  1823.) 

205 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

astonishment  to  behold  the  little  dwarf-like,  quarter- 
developed  beings,  and  to  be  told  that  they  were  wives, 
and  serving  not  only  their  lords  and  masters,  but  the 
mothers-in-law,  and  often  a  community  or  family  of 
ten,  twelve,  fourteen,  or  twenty.  Talk  of  maturity 
for  these  little  creatures !  They  can  never  come  to 
full  maturity,  for  they  were  robbed  before  they  were 
born,  as  were  their  ancestors.  If  they  could  have 
proper  exercise,  with  all  the  food  they  need,  and  above 
all,  if  they  could  be  made  happy  until  they  were 
twenty-five  years  old,  it  might  not  be  a  sin  for  them 
to  give  birth  to  an  immortal  soul." 

Eeferring  to  the  Hindu  husband,  the  same  lady  says : 

"  If  I  could  take  my  readers  with  me  on  my  round 
of  visits  for  one  week,  and  let  them  behold  the  con- 
dition of  the  little  wives,  it  would  need  no  words  of 
mine  to  send  you  forth  crying  into  this  wilderness  of 
sin.  If  you  could  see  the  suffering  faces  of  the  little 
girls,  who  are  drawn  nearly  double  with  contractions, 
caused  by  the  brutality  of  their  husbands,  and  who 
will  never  be  able  to  stand  erect ;  if  you  could  see  the 
paralysed  limbs  that  will  not  again  move  in  obedience 
to  the  will;  if  you  could  hear  the  plaintive  wail  of 
the  little  sufferers  as,  with  their  tiny  hands  clasped, 
they  beg  you  to  '  make  them  die,'  and  then  turn  and 
listen  to  the  brutal  remarks  of  the  legal  owner  with 
regard  to  the  condition  of  his  property ;  if  you  could 
stand  with  me  by  the  side  of  the  little  deformed  dead 
body,  and,  turning  from  the  sickening  sight,  could  be 
shown  the  new  victim  to  whom  the  brute  was  already 
betrothed,  do  you  think  it  would  require  long  argu- 
ments to  convince  you  that  there  was  a  deadly  wrong 
somewhere,  and  that  someone  was  responsible  for  it  ? 
After  one  such  scene  a  Hindu  husband  said  to  me, 
*  You  look  like  you  feel  bad '  (meaning  sad).  '  Doctors 
ought  not  to  care  what  see.  I  don't  care  what  see, 
nothing  trouble  me,  only  when  self  sick ;  I  don't  like 
to  have  pain  self.' " 

To  the  sympathetic  eyes  of  Miss  Margaret  Noble,  the 
Hindu  household  is  almost  ideal. 

"  All  the  sons  of  a  Hindu  household,"  says  this  lady, 
"  bring  their  wives  home  to  their  mother's  care,  and'  she, 
206 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

having  married  her  own  daughters  into  other  women's 
families,  takes  these  in  their  place.  There  is  thus  a 
constant  bubbling  of  young  life  about  the  elderly 
woman,  and  her  own  position  becomes  a  mixture  of  the 
mother-suzeraine  and  lady  abbess.  She  is  well  aware 
of  the  gossip  and  laughter  of  the  girls  amongst  them- 
selves, though  they  become  so  demure  at  her  entrance. 
Whispering  goes  on  in  corners,  and  merriment  waxes 
high  even  in  her  presence ;  but  she  ignores  it  discreetly, 
and  devotes  her  attention  to  persons  of  her  own  age. 
In  the  early  summer  mornings  she  smiles  indulgently 
to  find  that  one  and  another  slipped  away  last  night 
from  her  proper  sleeping-place  and  betook  herself  to 
the  roof,  half  for  the  coolness  and  half  for  the 
mysterious  joys  of  girls'  midnight  gossip. 

"The  relationship,  however,  is  as  far  from  famili- 
arity as  that  of  any  kind  and  trusted  prioress  with 
her  novices.  The  element  of  banter  and  freedom  has 
another  outlet,  in  the  grandmother  or  whatever  aged 
woman  may  take  that  place  in  the  community  house. 
Just  as  at  home  the  little  one  had  coaxed  and  appealed 
against  the  decisions  of  father  or  mother  to  the  ever- 
ready  granddam,  so,  now  that  she  is  a  bride,  she  finds 
some  old  woman  in  her  husband's  home  who  has  given 
up  her  cares  into  younger  hands,  and  is  ready  to  forego 
all  responsibility  in  the  sweetness  of  becoming  a  con- 
fidante. One  can  imagine  the  rest.  There  must  be 
many  a  difficulty,  many  a  perplexity,  in  the  new 
surroundings,  but  to  them  all  old  age  can  find  some 
parallel  Looking  back  into  her  own  memories,  the 
grandmother  tells  of  the  questions  that  troubled  her 
when  she  was  a  bride,  of  the  mistakes  that  she  made, 
and  the  solutions  that  ofifered.  Young  and  old  take 
counsel  together,  and  there  is  even  the  possibility 
that  when  a  mother-in-law  is  unsympathetic,  her  own 
mother-in-law  may  intervene  on  behalf  of  a  grand- 
son's wife. 


"  Long  ago,  when  a  child's  solemn  betrothal  often 
took  place  at  seven  or  eight  years  of  age,  it  was  to 
gratify  the  old  people's  desire  to  have  more  children 
about  them  that  the  tiny  maidens  were  brought  into 
the  house.  It  was  on  the  grandmother's  lap  that  the 
little  ones  were  made  acquainted ;  it  was  she  and  her 
husband  who  watched  anxiously  to  see  that  they  took 
207 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

to  each  other ;  and  it  was  they  again  who  petted  and 
comforted  the  minute  granddaughter-in-law  in  her 
hours  of  home-sickness.  Marriage  has  grown  later 
nowadays,  in  answer  amongst  other  things  to  the 
pressure  of  an  increasing  poverty,  and  it  does  not 
happen  so  often  that  an  old  man  is  seen  in  the  bazaar 
buying  consoling  gifts  for  the  baby  brides  at  home. 
But  the  same  instinct  still  obtains,  of  making  the  new 
home  a  place  of  choice,  when  between  her  twelfth  and 
fourteenth  year — the  girl's  age  at  her  first  and  second 
marriages — the  young  couple  visit  alternately  in  each 
other's  families."  ^ 

The  above  somewhat  lengthy  extracts  refer  to  the 
domestic  life  of  the  people  of  the  territories  of  Madras, 
Bombay,  and  Bengal  respectively,  and  at  different  periods. 
If  we  grant  their  substantial  correctness,  they  would  show 
how  unwise  it  would  be  to  draw  general  conclusions  about 
the  whole  of  India  from  any  statements  made  by  persons 
acquainted  with  only  limited  portions  of  that  vast  country. 
If  the  more  favourable  of  these  impressions  of  Indian 
home-life,  recorded  by  Europeans  of  both  sexes,  reveal 
pleasant  glimpses  of  amenities  which  we  may  reasonably 
hope  are  by  no  means  rare,  we  are  yet  unable  to  forget 
the  less  satisfactory  pictures  of  zenana  life  which  mission- 
ary ladies  have  given  to  the  world,  and  the  more  so  in  face 
of  the  multitudinous  facts  illustrative  of  domestic  tyranny 
which  Indians  themselves,  in  their  zeal  for  reform,  have 
made  public  within  the  past  few  years. 

With  such  knowledge  of  the  matter  as  is  now  common 
property,  one  cannot  but  feel  that  at  the  very  least  there  is 
ample  reason  to  desire  the  admission  of  more  intellectual 
light  into  the  Indian  zenana,  and  the  concession  of  more 
personal  freedom  to  its  inmates.  But  let  us  see  what  the 
Indian  reformers  are  themselves  thinking  about. 

Female  education. — When  social  reforms  are  in  the  air 
we  may  rest  assured  that  men  become  keenly  alive  to  the 
desirability  of  many  improvements  in  the  character,  be- 
haviour, and  customs  of  their  women-folk;  and  since  in 
recent  years  education  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  the 

^  The  Sister  Nivedita  (Margaret  E.  Noble),  The  Web  of  hidian  Life, 
London,  1904,  pp.  34,  35. 

208 


HINDU  SOCIAL   REFORMERS 

panacea  for  nearly  all  human  ills  and  shortcomings,  female 
education  occupies,  as  we  have  seen  already,  a  foremost 
place  in  the  Indian  reformer's  programme.  But  the  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  female  education  in  India  are  immense, 
and  little  progress  has  yet  been  made  in  attracting  girls 
and  women  to  such  schools  as  have  been  provided  for 
them. 

According  to  the  census  of  1901-2,  the  number  of  girls 
in  the  secondary  stage  of  instruction  among  one  hundred 
thousand  of  school-going  age  was  only  about  twenty-seven 
in  the  case  of  Hindus  and  about  five  in  the  case  of 
Muhammadans  —  i.e.,  not  three  in  ten  thousand  amongst 
Hindus,  and  only  one  in  twenty  thousand  amongst  Muslims. 

Hindu  Scriptures  are  opposed  to  female  education,  not 
permitting  women  even  to  take  part  in  the  worship  of 
Saraswati,  the  Goddess  of  Learning.^  Immemorial  custom 
is  equally  unfavourable  to  female  education  in  India.  From 
Megasthenes  we  learn  that  the  Brahmans  did  not  permit 
their  wives  to  attend  their  philosophical  discussions,  fearing 
they  would  divulge  their  secret  doctrines,  and  also  because 
instructed  females  would  be  prone  to  assert  their  independ- 
ence and  desert  their  husbands.  Early  marriage  is  another 
difficulty  and  a  serious  one  too,  as  Christian  missionaries 
have  often  pointed  out  with  regret,  drawing  painful  pictures 
of  bright  child- wives  longing  for  instruction,  being  removed 
from  their  happy  mission  schools  to  be  immured  in  dull 
zenanns. 

Yet  notwithstanding  the  immense  disabilities  under 
which  they  labour,  many  Indian  women  have  already 
qualified  themselves  for  and  received  the  degrees  in  arts, 
science,  law,  and  medicine  of  the  Indian  Universities.  I 
have  myself  met  some  educated  Indian  ladies,  mostly,  I 
must  admit,  Christians  or  Parsees,  and  have  been  struck 
by  the  extreme  modesty  of  their  bearing. 

In  respect  to  home  education,  European  ladies  who,  as 
teachers,  nurses,  or  physicians,  gain  access  to  the  secluded 
homes  of  the  better  classes  of  the  Indian  community  do 
not,  as  a  rule,  give  encouraging  reports  with  respect  to  a 
desire  for  education  amongst  the  inmates  of  the  zenanas, 
^  Shib  Chunder  Bose,  The  Hindoos  as  they  are. 

o  209 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

and  they  deplore  the  disinclination  of  the  purdah  nasheens  to 
adopt  modern  Western  habits,  which  in  the  eyes  of  European 
ladies  generally  constitute  an  absolutely  indispensable  factor 
of  true  civilisation. 

Indian  gentlemen  who  write  on  the  same  topic  are 
often  not  more  hopeful.  One  great  obstacle  to  zenana 
teaching  by  European  ladies  is  the  wide  gulf  which  lies 
between  Oriental  and  Occidental  ideas  upon  most  matters, 
and  even  upon  essential  points.  For  example,  to  quote  an 
educated  Punjabi  gentleman :  "  The  ladies  {i.e.  Hindu  ladies) 
know  and  believe  it,  as  a  maxim,  that  to  remain  dirty  is  a 
religious  duty,  a  Bahu  Bati  should  never  be  dressed  neat 
and  clean  like  a  Kanchan-maTigan  "  ;  and  yet,  "  women  who 
have  the  dirtiest  possible  dhoti  as  their  dress  keep  telling 
their  clean  and  respectable  European  teacher  at  every 
minute  to  be  careful  not  to  touch  them."  ^ 

What  female  education  is  expected  to  do  for  India  is 
set  forth  in  the  following  speech  made  by  the  Gaekwar  of 
Baroda  at  the  Alexandra  Girls'  School,  Bombay,  on  the  30th 
March  1904.    His  Highness  said : 

"The  greatest  difference  in  Eastern  and  Western 
conditions  is  our  lack  of  real  social  life.  This  is  both 
the  cause  and  effect  of  defective  education,  for  educa- 
tion is  not  a  reality  without  some  interchange  of  ideas. 
On  the  other  hand,  until  our  women  are  more  educated 
we  shall  not  break  through  their  splendid  isolation — 
isolation  which  we  cannot  too  strongly  condemn  if  we 
find  it  retarding  the  mental  and  physical  development 
of  our  women  and  men.  While  our  lack  of  social  life 
is  a  great  deficiency,  it  robs  us  of  some  of  the  strongest 
bonds  of  national  union,  for  it  accentuates  all  petty 
caste  restrictions.  It  is  also  intensely  narrowing,  for 
we  meet  our  neighbours  too  much  on  a  business  or 
official  footing,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  our  home 
interests  are  too  purely  domestic.  It  is  this  gap 
between  the  details  of  the  household  and  our  work 
which  our  women  can  help  us  to  bridge  over.  It  is 
this  widening  of  the  interests  at  which  we  have  to  aim 
— the  broadening  of  woman's  views  on  life  in  every 

^  From  a  letter  to  an  Indian  newspaper  on  "Teaching  in  the  Zenana," 
by  Piyare  Lai,  B.A.,  teacher,  Central  Model  School,  Lahore. 

2IO 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

respect — so  that  she  may  be  better  fitted  to  order  her 
own  household,  to  look  after  her  children,  to  make  her 
home  more  beautiful  and  attractive,  to  widen  out  the 
interests  which  surround  the  home,  until  they  can 
include  her  neighbours,  so  that  social  life  may  become 
a  reality  and  so  stretch  out  to  national  life,  and  so 
enable  the  woman  to  bear  her  full  share  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  race  and  the  future  of  India.  I  would 
even  allow  the  new  woman,  however  shocking  the 
heresy  may  sound,  to  find  her  own  level,  and  to  prove 
for  herself  the  reality  of  the  claims  she  has  made  for 
equality.  We  need  women  to  play  a  stronger  part  in 
our  national  life  for  many  reasons,  and  I  would  venture 
to  remind  you  that  under  the  more  strenuous  conditions 
of  Indian  social  life  which  prevailed  not  so  very  long 
ago,  our  women  took  a  larger  and  more  active  part  in 
our  national  life.  In  the  disintegrating  conditions  of 
our  present  society  they  are  not  playing  that  part. 
And  there  is  another  point  to  which  I  wish  just  to  call 
your  attention.  I  do  not  think  our  present  society 
exerts  sufficient  influence  on  pubHc  and  private  morality. 
I  fear  that  we  judge  a  man  too  much  by  his  adherence 
to  customs  and  forms,  and  too  little  by  his  real 
character.  It  is  women's  influence  which  we  need  to 
help  us  to  build  up  strong  public  opinion  on  these 
matters,  an  opinion  which  will  work  towards  a  higher 
standard  of  social  purity.  I  do  not  think  we  shall  be 
able  to  insist  on  one  method  to  attain  these  ends,  nor 
do  I  recommend  that  we  should  hastily  adopt  European 
methods  because  they  are  successful  in  Europe.  I  do 
not  believe  that  all  our  old  customs  can  be  entirely 
valueless,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  are  they  valuable 
merely  because  they  are  old.  But  we  need  some  touch- 
stone to  apply  to  them,  to  show  us  which  is  the  gold 
and  which  is  the  dross  of  ignorant  superstition  which 
has  gathered  round  them.  Such  a  touchstone  educa- 
tion must  supply." 

The  Gaekwar's  address  shows  how  much  is  expected 
from  female  education  in  India.  It  is  to  promote  social 
intercourse,  break  down  caste  prejudices,  widen  life's 
interests,  improve  public  and  private  morality,  and  create 
or  strengthen  bonds  of  nationality. 

We  may  be  permitted  at  least  to  hope  that  some  of  these 
sanguine  anticipations  may  be  realised  at  a  future  time. 

211 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

Women  advocates  of  women's  rights. — As  I  have  pointed 
out  in  a  previous  page,  the  demand  for  even  elementary 
education  on  the  part  of  females  has,  as  yet,  been  very 
slight  indeed,  although  a  few  women  have  actually  graduated 
with  credit  at  the  Indian  Universities.  Yet  it  is  a  remark- 
able fact  that,  in  spite  of  old-time  ideas  and  prejudices, 
Indian  women  are  themselves  coming  forward  publicly  to 
advocate  their  own  cause  and  that  of  their  neglected  sisters. 

Some  years  ago  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  listen  to  one 
of  these  advocates  of  women's  rights.  It  was  on  the  occa- 
sion of  a  public  meeting  at  the  Deva  Dharma  Mandir, 
Lahore. 

For  me  the  attraction  of  the  evening  was  an  address 
by  a  native  lady  on  "  Home  Life."  The  hall  was  a  newly 
built  one  about  50  feet  by  25  feet  in  the  clear.  At  one 
end  the  room  was  double-storeyed,  both  ground  floor  and 
gallery  being  screened  off  by  chicks  (reed  screens),  from 
behind  which  a  number  of  women  watched  the  proceedings 
under  great  difficulties.  A  large  company  had  assembled 
by  the  time  I  arrived.  Comfortable  chairs  had  been 
provided  for  the  audience,  and  were  occupied  mostly  by  native 
gentlemen  of  the  better  educated  classes.  On  an  open 
space  in  front  of  the  first  row  of  chairs  sat  about  fifty 
members  of  the  Deva  Dharma  Society  with  their  friends, 
all  unostentatiously  squatted  on  a  white  cloth  which  served 
as  a  carpet.  Some  arm-chairs  were  placed  against  the 
chicks  facing  the  audience,  and  a  small  table  provided  with 
a  lamp  and  ornamented  with  a  vase  occupied  the  middle 
part  of  the  same  end.  The  arm-chairs  were  soon  occupied 
by  seven  unveiled  native  ladies,  who  commenced  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  evening  by  singing  a  hymn  in  Urdu.  When 
this  was  over  the  lady  lecturer,  Premdevi,  neatly  attired  in 
skirt,  bodice  and  chaddar,  kid  shoes  and  white  stockings, 
with  an  orange-coloured  kerchief  pinned  over  her  head, 
came  forward,  and  taking  her  stand  in  a  modest  attitude  at 
a  little  table,  read  her  lecture  with  the  greatest  composure, 
in  a  clear  musical  voice  of  considerable  compass.  She 
commenced  by  laying  special  stress  upon  the  great  import- 
ance of  a  mother's  influence  upon  the  character  of  her 
offspring,  illustrating  her  point  by  reference  exclusively  to 

212 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

the  biographies  of  Europeans,  and  especially  of  Englishmen. 
Having  dwelt  sufficiently  on  this  subject,  the  lecturer 
proceeded  to  contrast  Indian  with  English  home-life,  much 
to  the  disadvantage  of  the  former.  She  told  us  that  Indian 
homes  were  a  hotbed  of  tyranny  and  contention,  and  she 
upbraided  the  highly  educated  classes  —  the  University 
graduates,  lawyers,  and  others — with  keeping  their  women 
virtually  in  a  state  of  slavery  and  imprisonment,  while 
they  themselves  posed  before  the  public  as  liberal-minded 
reformers  of  a  quite  radical  type.  Passing  to  other  matters, 
the  lady  said  a  word  for  the  Devi  Dharma  Mission,  to  which 
she  had  dedicated  her  life,  and  she  warmly  defended  the 
domestic  life  of  the  founder  of  the  new  sect  from  certain 
criticisms  which  had  been  levelled  against  it. 

Within  the  hall  the  lady's  address  was  listened  to  by 
her  audience  in  complete  and  chilling  silence.  But  out- 
side, loud  angry  shouting  and  vigorous  knocking  at  the 
gates  made  it  evident  that  there  was  at  least  a  section  of 
the  Lahore  public  to  whom  Premdevi,  or  more  probably 
the  party  she  had  joined,  was  anything  but  acceptable. 
Kegarding  the  lecturer's  antecedents,  a  word  may  not  be 
out  of  place.  As  far  as  I  could  ascertain,  she  had  been 
a  student  in  the  local  medical  college,  had  completed  a 
four  years'  course  there,  and  had  left  the  institution  with 
honours.  Amongst  her  friends  she  was  known  and  spoken 
of  as  Doctor  Premdevi 

The  lecture  to  which  I  have  just  referred  was  given 
on  the  16th  February  1891.  Some  years  previously  I 
had  had  the  pleasure  of  listening  to  another  Hindu  lady 
lecturing  in  the  hall  of  the  Arya  Samaj  on  the  woes  of 
the  inmates  of  the  zenana,  and  I  have  given  the  substance 
of  her  complaint  in  another  book.^ 

Some  years  earlier  other  Indian  women  had  taken  up 
the  battle  for  their  own  emancipation.  One  prominent 
instance  was  that  of  Pandita  EamabaL^ 

This  Brahman  lady,  a  Mahratta  by  birth,  was  the 
daughter  of  a  learned  man,  who,  renouncing  secular  life, 

^  Indian  Life,  Beligious  and  Social,  pp.  117-119. 

^  Pandita  Bamabai  Sarasvati,  the  High-easU  Hindu  Woman  (Fleming 
H.  Bevell  Company,  New  York,  1901).  . 

213 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

retired  into  the  jungle  with  his  family,  there  to  pass  in 
devotion  and  study  the  remainder  of  his  days.  Under  his 
instructions  Eamabai  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  Sanskrit 
language  and  of  the  sacred  Vedas  and  Puranas  of  her 
religion.  Strange  to  relate,  she  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
married  during  her  father's  lifetime,  and  after  his  death 
she  made  a  tour  of  India  accompanied  by  her  brother. 
Putting  aside  the  prejudices  of  caste  and  disregarding  the 
customs  of  her  people,  she  made  her  own  choice  of  a 
husband,  not  a  Mahratta  Brahman  but  a  Bengali  Babu, 
a  graduate  of  the  Calcutta  University.  A  union  like  this 
between  members  of  two  widely  distinct  Indian  national- 
ities was  a  most  unorthodox  and  daring  proceeding ;  which, 
however,  has  been  imitated  many  times  since  amongst  the 
more  highly  educated  classes.  Only  the  other  day  the 
papers  announced  a  marriage  between  a  Bengali  lady 
graduate  of  the  Calcutta  University  and  a  Punjabi  medical 
man  educated  in  England. 

Within  a  few  months  of  Eamabai's  marriage  she  became 
a  widow,  but  with  her  natural  recalcitrance  she  declined  to 
accept  the  degraded  position  or  to  undergo  any  of  the 
humiliations  of  Hindu  widowhood.  Her  utter  contempt 
for  the  cherished  conventions  of  Hindu  religious  and  social 
life  shocked  and  scandalised  the  orthodox,  but  with  char- 
acteristic self-rehance  she  determined  to  devote  herself  to 
the  ambitious  task  of  raising  the  intellectual,  social,  and 
moral  condition  of  her  countrywomen.  With  this  object 
Pandita  Eamabai  set  about  delivering  public  lectures  on  the 
education  and  emancipation  of  Hindu  women. 

For  a  time  this  Brahman  lady  attracted  a  good  deal 
of  public  attention,  and  was  the  subject  of  many  eulogistic 
addresses  and  notices,  but  her  social  position  was  a  cruelly 
isolated  one,  and  she  readily  fell  under  the  spell  of  cer- 
tain kind  Christian  missionaries,  who  easily  induced  the 
clever  and  impulsive  young  wanderer  from  the  fold  of 
orthodox  Hinduism  to  accept  their  sympathetic  hospitality 
and  help.  Influenced  by  her  new  friends,  the  Pandita  went 
to  England,  taking  her  little  daughter  with  her.  On  her 
arrival  in  England,  Eamabai  received  a  cordial  welcome 
from  the  Sisters  of  St.  Mary  at  Wantage,  and  shortly  after- 

214 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

wards  embraced  the  Christian  religion,  she  and  her  little 
girl  being  baptized  there  in  1883. 

The  convert  learned  English  at  Wantage,  and  was 
appointed  Professor  of  Sanskrit  at  the  Ladies'  College, 
Cheltenham,  where  she  studied  mathematics,  natural  science, 
and  English  literature.  However,  before  completing  the 
usual  course  at  that  institution,  she  went  to  America  to  be 
present  at  Philadelphia  on  the  occasion  of  her  cousin,  Mrs. 
Anandabai  Joshee,  receiving  a  medical  degree.  In  America, 
Eamabai  formed  various  schemes  for  the  education  and 
elevation  of  her  sisters  in  India ;  but  her  projects  finally 
took  shape  in  the  determination  to  found  a  purely  secular 
home  for  Hindu  widows,  where  they  might  be  trained  in  such 
work  as  would  enable  them  to  earn  an  independent  living. 
By  1889  she  got  together  by  means  of  subscriptions  a  sum  of 
£4000  for  the  establishment  of  a  Home  for  Hindu  Widows 
at  Poona,  and  started  it,  in  accordance  with  her  original 
idea,  as  a  purely  secular  institution ;  but  later  on,  yielding 
against  her  own  judgment  to  the  persuasion  of  Christian 
friends,  she  made  the  teaching  of  Christianity  an  essential 
feature  of  the  place,  and,  as  might  have  been  anticipated, 
the  venture,  under  these  conditions,  proved  a  complete 
failure. 

Pandita  Eamabai's  original  idea  was  a  good  one,  but 
even  if  strictly  adhered  to,  would  not,  in  all  probability, 
have  been  attended  with  success,  on  account  of  her  position 
as  a  convert  to  Christianity.  It  would  have  been  very 
different  had  the  Pandita  remained  a  Hindu,  even  an 
unorthodox  one.  But  her  scheme,  as  it  first  took  shape 
in  her  mind,  has  very  much  to  recommend  it,  and  in  any  and 
every  part  of  India  there  is  room,  indeed  a  crying  demand, 
for  the  establishment  of  Industrial  Homes  for  destitute 
widows.  Hindu  philanthropists  could  hardly  find  worthier 
objects  for  their  liberality  than  such  homes.  And  the 
State,  on  its  part,  might  also  afford  legitimate  and  inex- 
pensive assistance  to  the  peculiarly  deplorable  cause  of 
Indian  widows,  by  founding  training  schools  in  which 
widows,  and  widows  only,  would  receive  such  instruction 
as  would  enable  them  to  carry  the  torch  of  elementary 
knowledge  into  the  twilight  of  the  zenanas.     Such  training 

215" 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

schools  as  I  have  in  my  mind  would  be  strictly  secular, 
conducted  by  women  only,  and  would  neither  attempt  nor 
suggest  any  interference  with  the  manners  and  customs  of 
Hindu  society.  Widows  trained  in  these  schools,  having 
in  no  essentials  departed  from  their  religion  or  the  social 
habits  of  their  own  people,  would  be  freely  received  in 
the  zenanas  without  that  prejudice  which  necessarily  and 
invariably  attaches  to  the  Christian  zenana  teacher. 

Their  superior  education,  counteracting  in  a  great 
measure  the  sense  of  their  un worthiness  as  widows,  would 
give  them  considerable  influence  for  good,  and  in  time 
spread  a  certain  degree  of  education  through  the  households 
of  all  the  better  classes  of  the  Hindu  world.  Gradually 
widows  would  cease  to  be  regarded  as  objects  of  contempt, 
the  old-world  prejudice  against  them  would,  in  time,  die 
out,  and  a  large  number  of  them,  by  securing  honourable 
and  remunerative  employment,  would  cease  to  be  unwilling 
and  unwelcome  burdens  on  the  family  and  the  community 
to  which  they  belong  by  right  of  birth  or  of  matrimonial 
alliance. 

A  yearly  increasing  number  of  educated  widows  working 
regularly  as  teachers  behind  the  purdah  would,  as  already 
stated,  gradually  dispel  much  of  the  ignorance  which  at 
the  present  time  is  entrenched  in  the  almost  inaccessible 
zenanas  of  the  land.  And  when  ignorance  is  diminished, 
the  spontaneous  adoption  of  reforms  and  improvements  in 
social  life  may  be  confidently  looked  for. 

Possibly  my  suggestion  in  regard  to  secular  training 
schools  for  Hindu  widows  destined  for  zenana  work  has  been 
anticipated,  but  as  I  am  not  aware  of  such  being  the  case, 
I  commend  it  to  the  Indian  Educational  authorities,  in  the 
belief  that  it  contains  the  potential  germ  of  a  gradual, 
wholly  unobjectionable,  and  far-reaching  internal  revolu- 
tion in  Hindu  Social  life,  entirely  free  from  the  irritation 
inevitably  associated  with  interference  from  the  outside. 

The  attitude  of  men  towards  female  education. — In  spite 
of  much  affected  earnestness  on  their  part,  I  do  not  fancy 
that  even  educated  Indians  generally,  whether  Hindus 
or  Muhammadans,  take  a  specially  keen  interest  in  the 
intellectual  improvement  of  the  inmates  of  the  zenana,  and 

216 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

I  am  sure  they  do  not  relish  being  lectured  by  Hindu 
women  on  their  own  shortcomings.  With  the  Parsees  who 
are  not  Hindus  at  all,  but  followers  of  Zarathushtra,  and  in 
the  case  of  certain  Brahmas  of  Bengal  who  have  practically 
cut  themselves  off  from  Hinduism,  the  question  of  the 
education  of  women  and  of  their  intercourse  in  society  with 
the  opposite  sex,  is,  of  course,  on  a  different  footing. 

That  some  educated  young  men  devote  attention  to  the 
instruction  of  their  girl- wives  in  reading  and  writing,  and 
often  encourage  their  pupils  by  means  of  rewards  in  the 
shape  of  jewellery  for  proficiency  in  the  tasks  set  them,  I 
am  well  aware.  But  a  large  majority  of  the  men,  while 
recognising,  in  an  academic  fashion,  the  great  importance  of 
female  education,  are  by  no  means  anxious  for  any  special 
advance  in  this  direction,  at  least  during  their  own  lifetime  ; 
for  the  subjection  of  women  has  always  been  a  cardinal 
doctrine  in  the  East,  apparent  even  in  its  folk-lore.  For 
example.  Professor  Max  Miiller  in  his  interesting  essay 
"  On  the  Migration  of  Fables  "  establishes  the  Indian  origin 
of  the  idea  or  motif  of  the  charming  fable  of  the  silly  little 
castle-building  milk-maid,  so  familiar  in  different  forms  to 
European  children.  He  gives  two  or  three  versions  of  the 
fable  as  known  in  Western  nurseries,  and  as  related  by 
Eastern  fabulists;  but  the  learned  philologist  does  not 
notice  what  has  a  special  interest  of  its  own,  that  the 
Eastern  fable  has  always  a  man  for  its  hero,  whose  imagina- 
tion seems  to  picture  as  the  highest  possible  pitch  of  pride 
to  kick  and  beat  his  wife.  In  the  West  the  subject  of  the 
story  is  a  woman,  whose  misfortune  results  from  feminine 
vanity  or  childish  delight,  finding  expression  in  a  toss  of  the 
head  or  a  frolicsome  caper.     The  contrast  is  instructive  ! 

Immodest  bathing. — There  are,  however,  other  directions 
than  education  in  which  many  men  find  congenial  scope  for 
their  energies  in  the  advertising  of  themselves  and  the 
reforming  of  the  sex  ;  one  of  these  is  immodest  bathing. 

One  April  morning  I  drove  down  to  the  river  Eavi  on 
the  occasion  of  a  Hindu  fair.  I  was  on  the  road  by  a  quarter 
after  seven,  but  already  a  host  of  people  in  eJckas  and 
ordinary  four-wheeled  carriages,  on  horseback  and  on  foot, 
were  returning  from   the   river;  while  another  somewhat 

217 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

smaller  stream  of  behind-time  persons  of  both  sexes  was 
hurrying  towards  the  river.  It  was  an  animated  and 
picturesque  crowd,  displaying  a  good  deal  of  bright  colour 
and  no  little  amount  of  good  looks. 

From  near  a  spot  where  some  Yogis  had  encamped,  the 
moving  crowd  left  the  main  road,  and  crossing  a  track  over 
the  fields  made  for  the  bathing-place.  I  passed  on  to  the 
bridge  of  boats,  and  had  a  good  view  up  and  down  stream. 
The  water  was  low,  and  the  bathers  were  able  to  go  right 
out  into  the  shallow  stream,  which  in  some  places  was  little 
more  than  knee-deep.  The  most  frequented  part  was  about 
five  or  six  hundred  yards  below  the  bridge,  so  I  turned  off 
and  took  a  pathway  along  the  riverside,  protected  from  the 
sun  by  a  forest  of  trees. 

The  bathers  were,  for  the  most  part,  congregated  upon  a 
low  sandbank,  separated  from  the  riverside  by  a  shallow 
channel,  and  here  I  noticed  a  long  screen  made  of  daris 
(cotton  carpets)  in  the  usual  Indian  fashion,  set  up,  as  I 
soon  learned,  for  the  special  object  of  concealing  the  women 
bathers  from  the  prying  eyes  of  their  countrymen. 

This  was  an  innovation  probably  acceptable  to  neither 
sex,  the  outcome,  in  fact,  of  the  recent  teaching  of  Hindu 
social  reformers  of  the  modern  school 

It  has  for  ages  been  the  practice  as  it  is  to-day  for 
Hindu  women  in  the  Punjab  to  bathe  in  the  same  streams 
and  tanks  as  the  men  use,  to  frequent  the  bathing-places 
at  the  same  hours  as  the  men  do,  and  to  bathe  stark 
naked,  for  when  they  are  seen  thus  their  sins  are  forgiven. 
But  the  old  custom  has  become  shocking  to  the  modern 
reformers,  and  they  have  been  raising  an  outcry  about  it 
which  had  borne  fruit  in  the  very  prominent  screen  which 
had  attracted  my  attention.  However,  the  men  who  chose 
to  bathe  in  advance  of  the  screen  were  not  cut  off  from 
witnessing  the  aquatic  performances  of  the  fair  ladies,  and 
if  I  may  judge  from  what  I  saw,  there  was  quite  a  large 
number  of  men  not  indisposed  to  avail  themselves  of  this 
vantage-ground.  These  were  evidently  the  unregenerate. 
But  a  party  of  "reformers,"  nothing  loath  to  do  likewise, 
stole  round  to  a  favourable  point  of  view  and  set  up  a 
camera  for  the  purpose  of  having  a  "  study  from  the  nude," 

218 


HINDU   SOCIAL   REFORMERS 

with  the  laudable  object  of  exposing  the  scandal  and 
refuting  the  denials  of  the  orthodox  by  a  sun-picture  that 
could  not  lie.  However,  the  orthodox  party  raised  an 
outcry  against  these  well-meant  proceedings,  and  the  police, 
never  too  discriminating,  hustled  the  zealous  reformers 
with  their  camera  away  out  of  eye-shot  of  the  naked 
damsels. 

Of  nude  women  I  myself  saw  none  on  this  occasion. 
Only  one  stood  outside  the  screen  with  nothing  but  a  skirt 
on  to  arrange  her  toilet,  and  some  few  waded  through  the 
ankle-deep  water,  keeping  their  skirts  nearly  up  to  their 
hips.  But,  alas  !  only  a  fraction  of  their  sins  could  be  thus 
expiated. 

On  the  bank  of  the  river,  a  hundred  yards  or  so  behind 
the  sandbank  where  the  screen  had  been  put  up,  there  was 
a  Shdmiyana  (pavilion)  closed  on  three  sides,  but  open 
towards  the  river  face,  carpeted  with  daris  and  a  clean 
white  cloth,  which  invited  the  passer-by  to  sit  down  and 
listen  to  the  words  of  wisdom  from  the  lips  of  a  learned 
Brahman,  a  man  acquainted  with  the  Vedas.  This  pavilion 
had  been  pitched  by  the  Sanathan  Dharma  Sdbha,  i.e.,  the 
Orthodox  Hindu  Society.  The  learned  Brahman  sat,  to  my 
mild  surprise,  at  a  table  in  an  arm-chair.  Neither  table  nor 
arm-chair  were  worth  a  second  thought  except  in  connection 
with  that  orthodox  Brahman,  who  exhibited  quite  an 
advanced  tendency  by  using  such  articles  of  furniture, 
surely  never  heard  of  in  Vedic  times. 

The  Pandit  at  the  table,  a  grey-bearded  man  wearing 
a  pugri  (turban),  was  reading  Sanskrit  texts  and  expound- 
ing them  to  those  who  cared  to  listen,  the  burden  of  his 
teaching  being  that  the  Vedas  did  inculcate  the  necessity 
of  bathing  in  the  Ganges,  the  Jumna,  the  Saraswati  and 
the  other  rivers,  and  declared  the  religious  merit  of  such 
bathing.  These  harangues  were  meant  to  counteract  the 
unorthodox  teachings  of  certain  recent  reforming  sects,  to 
the  effect  that  such  bathing  ceremonies  were  useless  if  not 
worse. 

While  witnessing  the  above  noted  efforts  at  screening 
the  Hindu  women  from  the  gaze  of  the  public,  I  recalled 
to  mind  that  a  couple  of  years  previously  a  great  outcry 

219 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

had  been  made  by  certain  persons  against  a  police  officer 
in  the  Punjab,  because  in  his  district  a  woman  had  been, 
80  it  was  stated,  disrobed  for  the  purposes  of  a  police 
inquiry.  A  great  deal  of  political  capital  it  was  hoped 
would  be  made  out  of  this  "outrage,"  but  though  that 
expectation  was  not  realised,  the  outcry  led  to  the  police 
officer's  partisans  directing  special  attention  to  the  bathing 
habits  of  the  people,  and  to  their  practical  indifference  to 
the  disrobing  of  their  women  in  public  places;  and  it 
struck  me  that  probably  this  counter-move  may  have  to 
some  extent  hastened  the  reforming  movement  and  led 
to  the  practical  result  embodied  in  the  kanat  on  the  Eavi 
sandbank. 

The  sentiment  against  nude  bathing  had  certainly  been 
growing  for  some  years  past.  In  the  English  supplement, 
dated  21st  February  1881,  of  the  paper  published  by  the 
Society  known  as  the  Anjuman-i-Punjab,  a  correspondent 
writing  from  Multan  stated  that  a  private  association  was 
being  formed  amongst  the  native  gentlemen  of  the  place 
for  the  prevention  of  the  custom  which  obtains  in  the 
Punjab  of  women  bathing  naked  in  the  public  baths.  He 
stated  that  at  a  Suraj-Kanth  festival,  held  at  a  distance  of 
four  miles  from  Multan,  thousands  of  women  bathed  naked 
in  the  sacred  reservoir  in  sight  of  the  men,  many  of  whom, 
badmashes  (profligates)  he  calls  them,  went  amongst  the 
women,  while  others,  less  bold,  stood  farther  off  stealing 
sly  glances  at  the  charms  of  the  fair  bathers. 

How  curious  and  contradictory  are  the  habits  of  female 
seclusion  and  women  bathing  naked,  and  how  strange  that 
nowhere,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  do  men  bathe  in  an 
absolutely  nude  state  in  any  part  of  India. 

The  inimitable  "Ali  Baba"  speaks  of  "the  privileges 
of  nakedness  conferred  by  a  brown  skin,"  and  there  really 
is  something  in  this.  I  remember  well  an  educated  native 
gentleman  being  quite  shocked  at  the  flesh-coloured  tights 
of  an  English  ballet-girl,  whose  coloured  photograph  he 
saw  in  my  album;  quite  forgetful  that  the  women  of  his 
own  race  went  about  in  a  costume  which  left  exposed  to 
view,  bare  and  naked,  far  more  of  the  person  than  was 
covered  by  the  silk  tights  of  the  ballet-dancer. 

220 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

Although,  as  far  as  I  know,  it  is  not  the  usual  practice 
in  India,  outside  the  Punjab,  for  women  to  bathe  naked, 
yet  mixed  bathing  is  common  and  may  be  witnessed  every- 
where along  the  banks  of  the  great  rivers,  and  that  it  has 
attractions,  other  than  reHgious  ones,  for  the  ordinary 
Hindu,  will  be  evident  from  the  following  quaintly  expressed 
views  of  a  Bengali  gentleman : — 

"The  ghauts  at  Benares  are  by  far  the  most 
striking  of  all  its  architecture; — and  the  ghauts  of  a 
Hindoo  city  are  always  its  best  lounges.  Upon  them 
are  passed  the  happiest  hours  of  a  Hindoo's  day. 
There,  in  the  mornings,  the  greater  part  of  the  popula- 
tion turns  out  to  bathe,  to  dress,  and  to  pray.  In 
the  evenings,  the  people  retire  thither  from  the  toils 
of  the  day,  to  sit  on  the  open  steps  and  gulp  the  fresh 
river-air.  The  devout  congregate  to  see  a  Sunyasi 
practise  austerities,  or  hear  a  Purumhunso  pass  judg- 
ment upon  Vedantism.  The  idler  lounges  there,  and 
has  a  hawk's  eye  after  a  pretty  wench.  There  do  the 
Hindoo  females  see  the  world  out  of  their  zenanas, 
cultivate  friendship,  acquire  taste,  pick  up  fashion, 
talk  scandal,  discuss  the  politics  of  petticoat  govern- 
ment, learn  the  prices  current  of  eatables,  and  propose 
matches  for  their  sons  and  daughters.  Half  their 
flirting  and  half  their  romancing  go  on  at  the  ghauts. 
There  have  the  young  widows  opportunity  to  exchange 
glances,  to  know  that  there  are  admirers  of  their 
obsolete  beauties,  and  to  enjoy  the  highest  good 
humour  they  can  harmlessly  indulge  in. 

"  Being  the  headquarters  of  religion,  the  centre  of 
wealth,  the  focus  of  fashion,  and  the  seat  of  polite 
society,  Benares  is  the  great  point  of  convergence  to 
which  is  attracted  the  beauty  of  all  Hindoostan. 
To  have  a  peep  at  that  beauty,  the  best  opportunity 
is  when  the  women  sport  themselves  like  merry  Naiads 
in  the  waters  of  the  Ganges.  Then  do  you  see  realised 
the  mythic  story  of  the  apple  of  discord  between 
goddesses  personified  by  the  Khottanee,  the  Mahrat- 
tanee,  and  the  Lucknowallee  —  each  contending  to 
carry  off  the  prize.  The  Hindoostanee  women  have 
a  prestige  from  the  days  of  Sacoontola  and  Seeta. 
But  it  is  to  be  questioned  whether  a  youthful 
Bengalinee  cannot  fairly  stand  the  rivalry  of  these 
charms.     The  dress  and  costume  of  the  Khottanee 

221 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

certainly  kick  the  beam  in  their  favour.  But  we 
would  fain  raise  the  point  on  behalf  of  the  women 
of  Bengal,  whether  '  beauty  unadorned  is  not  adorned 
the  most' — whether  in  the  nudity  of  their  muslin- 
saree  they  are  not  as  naked  as  '  the  statue  that 
enchants  the  world.' "  ^ 

Curiously  enough  mixed  bathing  is  every  year  becoming 
more  and  more  popular  in  Europe,  notwithstanding  that 
certain  persons  are  scandalised,  and  the  susceptibilities  of 
some  good  folks  outraged  thereby.     What  is  it  a  sign  of  ? 

Immoral  songs  at  weddings. — When  the  social  patho- 
logist casts  his  critical  eye  about,  he  usually  lights  before 
long  upon  some  evil  or  other  which  he  longs  to  remove. 
This  is  true  everywhere,  but  especially  so  in  Hindu  India. 

As  is  well  known,  it  has  been  a  custom  amongst  the 
Hindus  for  grossly  immoral  songs  to  be  sung,  even 
by  respectable  women  of  good  social  position,  on  the 
occasion  of  weddings,  when  also  a  licence  of  speech  is 
permitted  which  is  nothing  short  of  astonishing.  Now 
young  India,  realising  that  these  practices  are  such  as 
Europeans  can  reasonably  take  exception  to,  raises  what 
protest  he  can  against  them,  and  the  new  social  purity 
associations  also  seriously  denounce  such  "  degrading 
practices."  If,  say  some  reformers,  we  have  none  but 
obscene  songs  to  sing  at  a  marriage  feast,  let  us  sing 
hymns  (hhajans)  on  such  occasions;  not  Vedic  hymns, 
but  the  hymns  which  have  been  recently  composed  for 
the  purposes  of  the  new  religious  Samajes. 

To  have  the  joyous,  sensuous  licence  of  the  marriage 
festivities  thus  curtailed,  revolutionised,  destroyed,  must 
be  intolerable  to  women  to  whom  these  social  gatherings 
are  a  welcome  relief  from  the  monotony  of  seclusion,  and 
a  much  appreciated  opportunity  for  a  little,  perhaps  too 
excessive,  freedom  of  speech  in  the  hearing  at  least  of  the 
opposite  sex. 

However,  in  some  cases  that  I  have  heard  of,  hhajans 

have   been  substituted  by  reforming  zealots  for  the  usual 

marriage  songs,  not  always  with  happy  results.     An  Indian 

friend   of  mine   once   related  to  me  the  ludicrous  results 

^  Bholanath  Chunder,  Travels  of  a  Hindoo,  vol.  i.  pp.  252,  253. 

222 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

of  this  decision,  at  any  rate  on  one  occasion.  He  was  at 
the  wedding  of  some  respectable  people  who  had  been 
inoculated  with  the  social  reform  fever,  and  consequently 
patronised  hymns ;  so  hymns  were  being  sung,  to  the  great 
discontent  and  almost  open  revolt  of  the  ladies.  My 
friend  gave  attention  to  the  words  of  one  of  the  hymns, 
which  did  not  seem  particularly  lively,  and  lo !  to  his 
astonishment,  he  discovered  it  was  a  funeral  dirge  which 
the  not  too  discriminating  singers  were  providing  as  an 
epithalamium. 

Women's  dress. — Wherever  under  the  sun  civilised  men 
and  women  are  to  be  found,  women's  dress  is  one  of  those 
subjects  on  which  the  mere  man  holds  strong  convictions  when 
the  tendency  of  fashion  is  towards  unnecessary  exposure  of 
the  person.  On  this  important  subject  I  may  be  permitted 
to  quote  the  following  quaint  passage  from  a  book  written 
by  an  educated  Bengali : — 

"  It  would  not  be  out  of  place  to  notice  here  that 
it  would  be  a  very  desirable  improvement  in  the  way 
of  decency  to  introduce  among  the  Hindoo  females  of 
Bengal  a  stouter  fabric  for  their  garment  in  place  of 
the  present  thin,  flimsy,  loose  sari,  without  any  other 
covering  over  it.  In  this  respect,  their  sisters  of  the 
North-Western  and  Central  Provinces,  as  well  as  those 
of  the  South,  are  decidedly  more  decent  and  respectable. 
A  few  respectable  Hindoo  ladies  have  of  late  years 
begun  to  put  an  iinghia  or  corset  over  their  bodies, 
but  still  the  under  vestment  is  shamefully  indelicate. 
Why  do  not  the  Baboos  of  Bengal  strive  to  introduce  a 
salutary  change  in  the  dress  of  their  mothers,  wives, 
sisters,  and  daughters,  which  private  decency  and 
public  morality  most  urgently  demand  ?  These  social 
reforms  must  go  hand  in  hand  with  religious,  moral, 
and  intellectual  improvement.  The  one  is  as  essential 
to  the  elevation  and  dignity  of  female  character  as  the 
other  is  to  the  advancement  of  the  nation  in  the  scale 
of  civilisation."  ^ 

The  nevj  woman. — Strange  as  it  may  seem,  we  already 
hear  in  India  complaints  of  the  new  woman,  and  from 
many  quarters  too.     I  have  frequently  heard  men  say  that 

*  Shib  Ch under  Bose,  The  Hindoos  as  they  are,  p.  194. 
223' 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

their  women  who  had  learned  to  read  and  write  made  use 
of  these  arts  only  to  indite  love-letters  or  make  assignations. 
Possibly  there  may  be  some  truth  in  this  statement,  also 
in  the  very  curious  accusation  against  educated  Indian 
husbands  contained  in  the  following  passage  from  a  book 
written  by  a  great  zamindar  (landowner)  of  Bengal : — 

"  Many  of  the  wives  of  the  educated  people  in  the 
towns  and  suburbs  know  how  to  read  and  write  a 
little.  But  how  does  this  little  knowledge  serve  them  ? 
It  is  not  utilised  to  help  them  to  higher  education, 
but  is  used  to  pander  to  the  vicious  tastes  of  their 
husbands,  who  derive  an  unearthly  pleasure  from  an 
unholy  epistolary  correspondence  with  their  wives,  the 
diction  and  sentiments  of  which  will  put  many  an 
abandoned  woman  to  the  blush. 

"  If  young  men  educate  their  wives  so  as  to  be  able 
only  to  write  filthy  letters  or  to  read  erotic  novels  that 
should  never  be  allowed  to  cross  the  threshold  of  any 
man  of  good  taste,  and  train  them  so  to  disregard 
their  parents  and  superiors  and  to  utterly  neglect 
their  household  duties,  then  I  say  the  sooner  we  get 
rid  of  such  education  and  training  the  better  it  will  be 
for  our  country."  ^ 

In  the  face  of  such  statements  it  may  reasonably  be 
doubted  whether  the  importation  of  education,  and  a  strong 
infusion  of  Western  ideas  regarding  liberty,  into  Indian 
home-life  will  be  quite  as  beneficial  as  some  well-meaning 
persons  think.  In  this  connection  the  following  indictment 
of  the  new  woman  in  India,  contributed  to  an  Anglo-Indian 
newspaper  by  one  of  her  own  countrymen,  will  not  be  out 
of  place  or  uninteresting : — 

"  In  some  instances  the  little  learning  of  our  girls 
is  producing  very  unwholesome  results.  Girls  that  can 
read  or  write  are  still  in  a  great  minority  as  compared 
with  their  unlettered  sisters ;  hence  their  attainments, 
however  insignificant  these  may  be,  are  not  a  little  apt 
to  be  overrated.  This  in  some  cases  turns  the  heads 
of  the  poor  girls,  and  they  consider  themselves  as 
belonging  to  a  higher  and  nobler  order  of  existence. 

'  B.  C.  Mahtab  (Maharajah  of  Burdwan),  Studies,  pp.  44,  45. 
224 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

They  are  thus  puffed  up  with  pride  and  are  unfitted  to 
take  their  share  in  household  duties.  They  think  it 
beneath  them  to  cook,  to  cleanse  dishes  and  cups,  to 
scrub  the  floor,  or  to  fetch  water  from  rivers  or  tanks. 
If  married  to  poor  people  they  look  upon  themselves 
as  thrown  away,  and  have  been  known  on  slight 
provocation  to  put  an  end  to  their  existence  by 
swallowing  opium  or  by  hanging  or  drowning  them- 
selves. Sometimes  when  they  are  allowed  to  take  the 
upper  hand  in  the  management  of  the  household 
affairs  they  grow  lazy,  domineering,  extravagant,  and 
selfish.  The  toilet  is  their  great  scene  of  business,  and 
the  proper  adjusting  of  the  hair  the  chief  occupation 
of  their  lives.  This  I  say  is  the  state  of  ordinary 
women,  though  I  know  there  are  multitudes  of  these 
of  a  more  elevated  life  and  conversation  that  move  in 
an  exalted  sphere  of  culture  and  virtue  and  are  imbued 
with  religious  fervour  and  piety  that  fill  their  male 
beholders  with  awe  and  fear ! " 


The  above  is  certainly  not  an  encouraging  picture,  and 
we  have  moreover  native  Indian  newspapers  already 
bewailing  the  demoralisation  of  the  so-called  educated  ladies 
of  Bengal,  who  frequent  theatres  and  indulge  in  cigarette- 
smoking  and  wine-drinking. 

The  future. — Although  very  little  indeed  has  yet  been 
achieved  in  respect  to  female  education  in  India,  it  is 
certain  that  under  British  rule  means  for  the  intellectual 
advancement  of  the  women  will  not  be  lost  sight  of,  and 
that  progress  will  be  made.  Gradually,  in  the  course  of 
time,  education  will  get  a  firm  footing  behind  the  purdah, 
and,  as  an  unavoidable  consequence,  the  zenana  system  will 
be  weakened.  Greater  liberty  of  movement  and  action, 
more  personal  independence,  will  be  conceded  to  Indian 
women,  or  be  assumed  by  them  as  in  the  many  cases  already 
familiar  to  us  in  the  very  infancy  of  the  movement,  and, 
under  the  new  conditions,  Hindu  society  will  be  entirely 
transformed.  The  instructive  spectacle  presented  to  us 
to-day  in  the  breaking  down,  with  deplorable  consequences, 
of  the  old  family  system  in  Japan  as  the  result  of  the 
extension  of  female  education  in  that  country,  ought  to  be  a 
warning  to  the  more  sanguine  advocates  for  the  admission 
p  225 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

of  women  in  India  to  the  educational  privileges  of  the  other 
sex.^ 

With  an  irresistible  desire  to  peer,  as  far  as  may  be 
possible,  into  the  future,  we  naturally  pause  to  ask  ourselves, 
"What  the  effect  of  such  a  radical  change  in  Hindu  society 
would  be  ? 

Education  is,  in  these  days,  a  magic  word,  a  word  to 
conjure  with ;  but  stripped  of  fictitious  glamour,  what  does 
it  mean  for  the  great  mass  of  females  of  all  classes  even  in 
advanced  Western  countries  ?  For  the  vast  majority  of 
Indian  women,  well  trained  as  they  are  in  the  arts  and 
requirements  of  Indian  domestic  life,  it  would,  if  not 
actually  prejudicial  to  this  domestic  training,  simply  mean  a 
superadded  knowledge  of  reading,  writing,  and  ciphering,  to 
be  used  most  likely,  as  we  have  already  learned,  in  poring 
over  unedifying  fiction,  writing  passionate  love-letters,  com- 
municating gossip  to  friends  at  a  distance,  and  perhaps 
in  casting  up  accounts  occasionally. 

After  much  careful  consideration  of  the  subject,  I  yet 
cannot  help  feeling  that  in  India  female  education,  which 
to  a  very  great  extent  involves  female  emancipation  from 
control,  will  not  be  an  altogether  unmixed  blessing,  and 
that  the  great  benefits  expected  from  it  will  never  be 
realised.  Of  one  thing  we  need  have  no  doubt  that  Indian 
women,  of  whatever  class,  when  they  have  been  educated 
will  assert  themselves  and  claim  a  social  freedom  denied 
to  their  sex  at  any  and  every  period  of  Indian  history  of 
which  we  have  any  knowledge.  If  the  time  ever  comes 
when  this  great  emancipation  of  Indian  women  is  an  ac- 
complished fact,  then,  by  their  inevitable  rivalry  a  much 
higher  and  more  expensive  standard  of  living  will  become 
general  and  a  much  more  strenuous  life  will  be  imposed 
upon  bread-winners  than  any  of  which  the  Indian  people 
have  as  yet  had  experience.  As  a  result  of  extravagant 
living,  coupled  with  an  increased  desire  for  freedom  on  the 
part  of  both  men  and  women,  marriages  will  hecome  less 
frequent  and  less  permanent.  Existing  caste  barriers  will 
inevitably  be  carried  away,  because  superior  "up-to-date" 

^  See  "Education  in  the  New  Japan,"  by  Mrs.  Mary  Crawford  Fraser,  in 
The  World's  Work,  November  190G. 

226 


HINDU   SOCIAL   REFORMERS 

men  and  women  would  naturally  rise  above  such  old-world 
prejudices,  while  quite  as  inevitably  a  new  order  of  castes, 
based  most  probably  on  wealth,  would  come  into  existence. 

The  strenuous  life,  with  its  concomitant  discouragement 
of  marriage,  once  inaugurated,  competition  hetiveen  the  sexes 
for  employment  will  become  as  unavoidable,  as  keen,  and  as 
deplorable  as  it  is  in  Europe  and  America,  and  in  this  strife 
of  interests  and  individuals  the  unsuccessful  of  both  sexes 
will  as  elsewhere  go  down  to  the  abyss  and  be  submerged. 

Amongst  the  voluptuous  races  of  India  a  freedom  of  inter- 
course between  the  sexes,  such  as  is  permitted  in  European 
social  life,  would,  under  existing  conditions,  be  morally 
disastrous,  but  whether,  with  the  spread  of  education 
amongst  all  classes  and  both  sexes,  such  social  intercourse 
would  be  productive  of  good  or  evil  is  a  question  which 
must  be  left  to  the  decision  of  time. 


227 


HINDU   SOCIAL  B.E¥OB,ME?S— continued 
Section  VIII. — Social  intercourse  between  Europeans  and  Natives. 


HE  desirability  of  promoting  social   intercourse 

I  in   India   between   Europeans  and  natives,  or 

between  the  rulers  and  the  ruled  in  that  great 
dependency,  is  a  subject  often  on  the  lips  of 
English  men  and  women,  who  have  not  given  so 
much  as  a  thought  to  the  thousands  of  years  of 
history,  legends,  and  dreams,  of  religious  systems  and  social 
institutions  which  lie  between  the  two  nationalities,  and  will 
lie  between  them  for  ever.  With  the  sunshine  and  warmth 
of  millenniums  in  their  veins  can  the  Indian  races  ever 
really  relinquish  their  traditions,  their  hereditary  feelings, 
ideas,  and  customs  in  order  to  consort  with  their  frigid 
masters  from  the  fog-bound  islands  of  the  West  ?  Can  they 
do  all  this  ?  for  no  soul  ever  imagines,  even  for  a  moment, 
that  the  dominant  race  will  ever  willingly  consent  to  abate 
one  jot  or  tittle  of  its  intellectual  pretensions  or  alter  its 
insular  manners  and  customs  in  the  minutest  degree  to 
further  social  intercourse  between  themselves  and  the 
natives.  Therefore  all  the  concessions,  all  the  modifica- 
tions, and  all  the  sacrifices  must  come  from  the  Indians, 
if  they  are  to  come  at  all. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  with  the  hope  of  gaining  political 
or  personal  advantages  the  upper  ranks  of  the  subject  races 
were  induced,  in  the  course  of  time,  to  abandon  their  religious 
exclusiveness  and  to  recast  their  social  systems  so  as  to  fit 
in  with  those  of  their  European  masters  in  order  to  bring 
about  free  social  intercourse  between  the  men  and  women 
of  the  two  races,  does  any  well-informed  person  really 
believe  that  such  changes  would  be  welcomed  by  the  rulers 
or  by  English  society  in  India  ? 

228 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

However,  the  introduction  of  such  changes  as  I  have 
just  contemplated  is  contingent  upon  so  many  very  im- 
probable circumstances,  in  the  case  of  Hindus  and 
Muslims  alike,  that  the  question  does  not  at  the  present 
time  call  for  serious  consideration.  But  it  may,  never- 
theless, be  profitable  to  survey  the  extent  of  the  inter- 
course between  the  two  races  which  exists  at  the  present 
time  as  the  result  of  ordinary  administrative  and  busi- 
ness requirements,  and  the  deliberate  action  of  social 
reformers. 

In  the  upper  strata  of  Indian  society,  European  and 
native,  some  half-hearted  attempts  to  bring  about  social 
intercourse  are  not  wanting ;  but  in  the  lower  ranks  of  life 
there  is  nothing  of  the  sort,  no  drawing  together  either  real 
or  feigned.  Ambitious  and  pushing  natives  naturally  desire 
to  keep  themselves  as  much  as  possible  before  the  eyes  of  the 
higher  English  officials — dispensers  of  Government  favours, 
rewards,  and  honours  —  and  these  well-paid  officials  on 
their  part,  posing  as  liberal-minded  administrators  devoted 
disinterestedly,  heart  and  soul,  to  the  welfare  of  the  country, 
are  constrained  to  encourage  any  movement  that  may 
reasonably  be  thought  conducive  to  the  welfare  and  im- 
provement of  what,  with  fine  humility,  they  style  their 
native  fellow-subjects.  Under  the  promptings  of  such 
motives  as  I  have  just  mentioned,  associations  have  been 
formed  for  the  especial  object  of  promoting  social  inter- 
course between  Europeans  and  natives ;  but  their  influence 
has  been  infinitesimal.  Associations  of  this  sort  generally 
arrange  for  one  or  two  formal  reunions  of  Europeans  and 
natives  each  year;  conversaziones  perhaps,  or  more  likely 
garden-parties.  A  few  prominent  European  officials  attend 
these  functions,  and  lay  themselves  out  to  repay  with 
pleasant  but  condescending  civility  the  attentions  of  the 
native  gentlemen  present.  No  Hindu  or  Muslim  ladies 
grace  such  assemblies  with  their  presence,  and  though  it 
may  be  taken  as  all  but  certain  that  every  native  gentleman 
present  has  a  wife  at  home,  it  would  be  a  gross  breach  of 
Hindu  or  Muslim  etiquette  to  ask  about  even  the  health  of 
the  ladies  behind  the  purdah  or  make  any  allusion  whatever 
to  them.  -  _ 

229 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

Only  a  very  few  native  Christian  ladies  may  be  seen 
at  these  mixed  assemblies  in  Northern  India.  But  a  fair 
attendance  of  English  ladies  may  be  counted  upon,  all  of 
them,  with  extremely  rare  exceptions,  quite  unacquainted 
with  the  native  gentlemen  amongst  whom  they  move 
about  with  unconcealed  indifference  during  a  brief  hour 
or  two. 

Amidst  the  evident  boredom  of  all  parties  concerned, 
the  suggestion  of  refreshments  comes  as  a  relief  to  Europeans 
and  natives  alike,  and  now  the  striking  hollowness  of  the 
attempt  to  bring  about  social  intercourse  between  Europeans 
and  natives  is  still  further  accentuated  ;  for  at  this  juncture, 
a  marked,  if  gradual,  separation  of  the  three  communities, 
European,  Hindu,  and  Muhammadan,  becomes  apparent  as 
they  respectively  gravitate  towards  three  widely  separated 
refreshment  buffets  provided  with  viands  of  very  distinctive 
kinds.  One  of  the  essential  barriers  between  the  three 
communities  thus  stands  revealed  in  an  inability  to  eat  or 
drink  together.  I  well  remember  at  one  such  garden-party 
trying  to  persuade  a  native  gentleman  to  join  me  at  the 
buffet  where  Europeans  were  partaking  of  refreshments; 
but  he  politely  excused  himself  and  hurried  off  smiling  but 
none  the  less  dismayed,  though  he  had  been  in  England, 
had  been  called  to  the  Bar  there,  and  had  of  necessity 
lived  with  Europeans  for  about  three  years.  At  home  in 
India  he  was  another  man,  and  eating  and  drinking  with 
non-Hindus  in  the  sight  of  his  own  countrymen  could  not 
possibly  be  indulged  in  without  the  gravest  consequences. 

A  few  native  gentlemen  of  high  position,  Kajahs  and 
Maharajahs  for  example,  make  it  a  practice  to  extend 
magnificent  hospitality  to  European  gentlemen  and  ladies 
for  perhaps  a  week  at  a  time  once  or  twice  a  year. 
Nothing  that  money  can  provide  or  courtesy  dictate  is 
wanting  on  such  occasions  for  the  entertainment  and 
comfort  of  the  guests.  The  host  and  the  male  members 
of  the  family  take  a  lively  personal  interest  in  the  arrange- 
ment and  management  of  everything,  organising  shooting- 
parties,  races,  and  sports  of  all  kinds.  The  Maharajah 
himself  and  some  of  his  relatives  and  high  officers  may 
even  dance  with  the  English  ladies;  but  no  native  ladies 

230 


HINDU   SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

are  present,  and  these  neglected  ones  may,  at  most,  obtain 
from  behind  the  jalousies  of  the  zenana  an  envious  glimpse 
of  the  doings  of  their  gay  lords. 

Sometimes  we  hear  of  an  Indian  Muslim  feudatory  and 
two  or  three  of  his  sirdars  sitting  down  to  dinner  on  a  State, 
or  very  special,  occasion  with  high  Anglo-Indian  officials  and 
European  ladies,  but  needless  to  add  that  not  a  single 
Muhammadan  lady  is  present  at  these  social  gatherings. 

Wealthy  Babus  who  have  official  or  business  relations 
with  Europeans  do  now  and  again  invite  them  to  their 
liouses  to  witness  a  nautch  or  perhaps  the  tricks  of  Indian 
jugglers,  and  on  such  occasions  provide  their  guests  with  a 
sumptuous  repast  and  champagne  ad  libitum ;  but  native 
ladies  are  conspicuous  by  their  absence  at  these  entertain- 
ments, which  are  generally  a  mere  incident  in  the  prolonged 
festivities  connected  with  a  wedding  in  the  host's  family. 

In  official,  professional,  and  commercial  life,  that  is  in 
business  generally,  a  certain  degree  of  perhaps  daily  inter- 
course takes  place  between  the  men  of  the  different  races. 
In  the  Council  Chamber,  on  the  Bench,  at  the  Bar,  in  all 
the  administrative  departments  of  the  State,  in  the 
Universities  and  Colleges,  in  Government,  railway  and 
commercial  offices,  in  banks,  markets  and  business  places 
of  every  kind,  Europeans  and  natives  meet  regularly  as 
fellow-workers.  Under  such  circumstances  they  come  to 
know  a  great  deal  of  each  other  as  ivorkers  in  the  sphere  to 
which  they  belong,  and  on  the  whole  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  such  contact  tends  to  mutual  respect  and  kindly 
sympathy  and  even  personal  regard  and  affection,  and  yet 
does  not  encourage  social  intercourse. 

Sports  in  which  both  Europeans  and  natives  meet  in 
friendly  rivalry  also  afford  opportunities,  not  very  numerous 
it  is  true,  for  the  men  of  the  two  races  to  understand  and 
appreciate  each  other;  for  tiger-hunting;  and  such  games 
as  polo,  football,  and  cricket  have  a  tendency  to  draw  out 
certain  good  points  of  men's  characters,  whether  the  players 
be  white  or  brown. 

Freemasonry  has  admitted  to  a  knowledge  of  its  secrets 
a  handful  of  Indian  deists,  and  these  gentlemen  partake, 
along   with   their  white  "brethren  of   the  mystic  tie,"  of 

231 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

those  refreshing  banquets  that  usually  reward  the  exhaust- 
ing labours  of  the  craftsmen.  Perhaps  in  this  fraternal 
association  some  real  friendships  may  possibly  be  formed 
and  cemented;  but  then  the  ladies  on  both  sides  are  by 
the  masonic  code  rigorously  excluded  from  all  strictly 
masonic  gatherings. 

Intercourse  between  Europeans  and  natives  in  the  ordi- 
nary business  of  life  and  in  sports  of  all  kinds  will  probably 
increase  as  time  goes  on,  with  the  inevitable  result  of  a 
certain  levelling  up  from  below  and  lowering  from  above, 
fraught  with  momentous  political  consequences. 

Here  and  there  an  Indian  prince  may  be  found  whose 
wife  accompanies  him  into  European  society,  but  on  inquiry 
the  prince  would  probably  prove  to  be  a  man  of  inferior 
caste,  probably  not  a  professing  Hindu  at  all,  or  a  very 
unorthodox  one. 

Amongst  the  minor  non-Hindu  and  non-Muslim  com- 
munities of  India  there  are  some,  the  well-known  Parsees 
of  Bombay  for  example,  whose  customs  permit  of  freer 
intercourse  between  their  women  and  Europeans  in  society 
than  is  admissible  in  the  case  of  Hindus  and  Muhammadans ; 
but  though  very  prominent  in  Western  India,  these  clever 
and  amiable  followers  of  Zarathushtra  form  but  a  very 
inconsiderable  fraction  of  the  vast  population  of  India. 

Mixed  marriages,  by  which  I  here  mean  marriages 
between  Indian  men  and  European  women,  almost  un- 
known formerly,  have  not  been  quite  so  rare  in  recent 
years,  and  being  indicative  of  an  appreciable  levelling  up, 
may  possibly  help  to  create  a  certain  amount  of  social 
intercourse  between  the  sexes  and  also  between  Europeans 
and  natives,  though  I  am  doubtful  that  the  latter  result 
would  follow  unless  the  husband  happened  to  be  a  Christian, 
cut  off  from  his  own  kith  and  kin. 

Mr.  Oscar  Browning  certainly  tells  us  how  he  dined  at 
the  house  of  an  English  lady,  brought  up  at  Girton,  and 
married  to  a  distinguished  Hindu,  and  there  met  six  Indian 
ladies  attired  in  graceful  native  dress ;  but  he  omits  to 
record  whether  these  six  ladies  were  Christians,  Brahmas, 
Parsees,  or  Hindus,  and  whether  they  really  ate  at  the  same 
table  with  himself  and   his  English  hostess.     He  admits, 

232 


HINDU  SOCIAL  REFORMERS 

however,  that  at  the  after-dinner  reception,  "the  male 
and  female  elements  did  not  seem  to  mix.  The  ladies 
sat  huddled  up  on  a  sofa  together,  while  their  lords  and 
masters  wandered  about  entirely  careless  of  their  exist- 
ence," adding  the  significant  remark,  "Still  they  seemed 
happy  enough."  ^ 

I  have  known  English  married  ladies  to  visit,  now  and 
again,  the  wives  and  families  of  native  gentlemen  with  whom 
their  own  husbands  were  associated  in  business,  and  to  have 
been  very  interested  in  all  they  saw  and  heard  in  the 
zenana.  They  have  been  catechised  by  their  hostess  and 
her  companions  as  to  the  value  of  their  jewellery  and  the 
amount  of  their  husband's  earnings.  They  have  had  to 
submit  to  the  close  and  curious  inspection  of  all  the  details 
of  their  dress  and  attire  generally;  and  have  called  forth 
expressions  of  astonishment  and  horror  on  being  led  to 
admit  that  they  had  unmarried  daughters  at  home  of 
eighteen  or  even  twenty  years  of  age.  The  visitors  have 
had  to  admire  the  scantily  clothed  baby-boy  carrying 
on  his  tiny  person  a  valuable  assortment  of  pure  gold 
ornaments;  they  have  had  to  partake  of  confections  to 
which  they  had  not  been  used,  and  which  at  the  conclusion 
of  the  visit  were  all  packed  up  and  sent  with  the  visitors, 
a  kindly  meant  but  still  doubtful  compliment,  when  it  is 
remembered  those  sweets  had  become  impure  and  unfit  for 
home  consumption,  owing  to  the  presence  and  contaminating 
touch  of  the  visitors  themselves. 

If  we  indulge  our  fancies  we  may  imagine  that  while 
the  English  ladies  driving  to  the  residence  of  their  hostess 
had  perhaps  been  discussing  certain  details  of  a  recent  station 
ball  or  a  new  book  by  a  popular  novelist,  their  Hindu  friends 
may  have  been  arranging  about  a  proposed  pilgrimage  to 
Hardwar  or  bewailing  the  misfortunes  of  an  accursed 
child-widow  of  ten  or  twelve  years  of  age.  If  the  hostess 
belonged  to  a  Muslim  family  she  might  have  been  talking 
about  the  approaching  fast  of  Eamazan,  or  the  expected 
return  of  a  Haji  from  Mecca. 

But  after  the  visit  was  over  we  may  be  sure,  conjecture 
being  quite  unnecessary,   that    both    the    European    and 
^  Impressions  of  Indian  Travel,  pp.  57,  58. 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

native  ladies  were  busy  commenting,  with  more  pungent 
criticism  than  kindly  appreciation,  upon  each  other's  strange 
ideas,  quaint  manners,  and  odd  peculiarities  of  dress  and 
behaviour. 

Lady  doctors  and  zenana  teachers,  on  different  grounds, 
and  for  their  own  purposes,  obtain  admission  into  the 
houses  of  the  natives,  and  no  doubt  help  the  secluded 
inmates  of  Indian  homes  to  realise  to  some  extent  the 
position,  the  freedom,  and  the  aspirations  of  European 
women. 

European  ladies  of  the  very  highest  position  have  held 
receptions  for  native  ladies  from  which  all  men  have  been 
scrupulously  excluded,  and  the  outside  world  has  been 
duly  assured  that  these  functions  were  very  successful 
indeed. 

No  doubt  the  company  must  have  very  greatly  interested 
the  English  hostess  and  her  English  countrywomen,  and 
the  meeting  given  both  hostess  and  guests  much  to  talk  about 
afterwards;  but  whether  these  receptions  really  tend  to 
promote  social  intercourse  between  Europeans  and  natives 
may  well  be  doubted.  A  few  Indian  ladies  have  come  with 
their  husbands  to  Europe,  and  some  have  been  presented  at 
Court ;  but  they  have  none  the  less  been  unable  to  obtain 
or  maintain  a  footing  in  Anglo-Indian  society. 

Affectation  and  hypocrisy  aside,  English  men  and 
women  in  India  have  no  desire  to  mix  on  intimate  terms, 
or  on  a  footing  of  social  equality,  with  natives  of  even  the 
best  class ;  while  natives  on  their  part  have  not  the  least 
inclination  or  the  remotest  intention  of  admitting  Westerns 
to  the  intimacy  of  their  own  home-life.  As  already  ex- 
plained, there  are  doubtless  some  natives  who  desire  the 
acquaintance  or  formal  friendship  of  well-placed  Europeans, 
but  merely  because  they  hope  that  such  friendship, 
maintained  strix5tly  outside  their  family  circle,  may  be  an 
honour  or  a  worldly  advantage  to  themselves.  There  are 
also  a  few  Englishmen  of  the  commoner  sort  who  for 
pecuniary  gain  are  not  ashamed  to  be  hangers-on  to  the 
native  princes  and  aristocrats.  But  the  modes  of  life, 
habits  of  thought,  religious  beliefs  and  prejudices,  ethical 
standards,  manners,  and  etiquette  of  the  two  races  have  so 

234 


HINDU  SOCIAL   REFORMERS 

little  in  common  that  a  strong  desire  for  each  other's  com- 
jjaniomhip,  which,  after  all,  is  the  true  basis  of  friend- 
ship, would  be  extraordinary  indeed,  and  would  be  more 
extraordinary  still  in  the  existing  relative  positions  of  the 
two  races  as  dominant  and  subject  members  respectively 
of  the  body  politic;  a  fact  which  finds  expression  in  the 
natural  if  offensive  racial  pride  of  the  ruling  class,  and  has 
its  complement  in  the  deep-rooted  objection  of  many  upper 
class  natives  to  accept  even  the  semblance  of  patronage 
from  members  of  the  present  dominant  caste. 

Kacial  antipathies,  accentuated  by  political  inequalities 
and  religious  exclusiveness,  are  amongst  the  fundamental 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  social  intercourse  between 
Europeans  and  natives  in  India,  and  will  probably  prove 
insurmountable. 

Some  of  the  ways  in  which  the  assumption  of  race- 
superiority  on  the  part  of  official  or  unofficial  Europeans  is 
made  objectionably  manifest  in  the  disdainful  treatment  of 
natives,  are  set  forth  in  a  recent  pamphlet  written  by  a 
Parsee  barrister-at-law.^  The  writer  alludes  to  incidents 
which  are  common  in  railway  travelling,  on  railway  plat- 
forms, in  the  law  courts  and  elsewhere,  and  his  statements 
are  both  true  and  temperate ;  but  I  fear  there  is  no  remedy 
for  the  evil  such  as  it  is. 

Other  more  obvious  causes  which  hinder  social  inter- 
course between  Europeans  and  natives  are  so  well  known 
that  it  may  be  sufficient  to  merely  mention  them  here.  One 
of  these  is  that  native  ladies  may  not  appear  in  society 
along  with  men.  Under  such  circumstances  Europeans 
naturally  object  to  their  own  wives  and  daughters  having 
social  intercourse,  however  formal,  with  native  gentlemen, 
and  as  the  presence  of  women  is  an  indispensable  feature  of 
European  society,  all  natives  are  in  consequence  excluded 
from  it,  except  in  such  rare  cases  as  those  already  referred  to. 

Then  there  is  the  previously  stated  difficulty  about 
eating  and  drinking  together. 

Again,  the  requirements  of  administrative  efficiency 
compel   every   European   official   occupying   a   responsible 

'  K.  E.  Ghamat,  Barrister-at-law,  The  Present  State  of  India  :  An  Appeal 
to  Anglo-Indians  (Bombay,  1905),  pp.  10-27. 

235' 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

position — whatever  his  goodwill  towards  the  natives  may 
be — to  hold  himself  aloof  from  friendly  intercourse  with 
them,  because,  beside  the  risk  of  compromising  his  dignity, 
he  is  well  aware  that  in  most  cases  his  friendship  is  sought 
by  natives,  even  of  high  rank,  from  interested  motives  not 
always  unobjectionable.  And,  in  any  case,  the  evidence  of 
friendship  between  any  European  official  and  a  native  would 
surely  give  rise  to  jealousies  and  suspicions  amongst  the 
less  favoured  Indian  gentry. 

Superior  European  officials  being  thus  wisely  shy  of 
forming  any  but  the  most  nominal  friendships  with  natives, 
their  juniors,  as  well  as  Europeans  of  other  classes,  take  the 
cue  from  them.  Subordinate  European  officials  and  non- 
officials  have  no  need  whatever  to  be  particularly  stand- 
offish ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  their  friendship  is  not 
courted  by  native  gentlemen,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it 
would  not  'pay. 

I  hope  I  have  now  made  it  quite  clear  that  there  is  no 
natural  drawing  together  of  Europeans  and  natives  in  any 
stratum  of  society  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  but 
rather  the  reverse,  and  that,  though  much  friendly  feeling 
may  exist  between  individual  members  of  the  different 
communities,  the  only  encouragement  which  exists  to  social 
intercourse  between  them  is  purely  artificial,  being  due 
mainly  to  an  affectation  of  liberality  and  large-minded- 
ness  on  the  part  of  a  few  officials,  desirous  of  posing  as 
men  above  the  narrow  prejudices  of  race,  colour,  and  creed ; 
interested  motives  in  the  case  of  natives  anxious  to  secure 
useful  friends  and  patrons  amongst  the  white  ruling  class ; 
and  desire  on  the  part  of  certain  Indians  who  have  enjoyed 
and  appreciated  the  hospitality  and  friendship  of  people  in 
England  to  retain  the  same  privileges  in  India. 

When  one  hears  Sir  Civilian  Administrator,  K.C.I.E.,  or 
General  Sir  Indian  Army,  K.C.S.I.,  speaking  of  his  dear 
friends  the  Eajah  of  Eacepore  or  Sirdar  Polo  Singh,  we  need 
not  take  their  expressions  literally  but  discount  them  freely,  as 
being  evidently  tainted  with  that  official  insincerity  (become 
second  nature)  which  is  engendered  by  and  inseparable 
from  the  high  position  he  holds  or  has  held  in  his  day. 
Also  when  the  Eajah  or  the  Sirdar  alludes  to  his  old  and 

236 


HINDU   SOCIAL   REFORMERS 

valued  friend  Sir  Civilian  Administrator,  K.C.I.E.,  or  the 
General  Sahib,  be  sure  he  feels  that  by  this  claim  he  is 
conferring  an  honour  upon  himself. 

Where  such  antipathic  communities  as  the  English  in 
India  on  the  one  hand  and  the  natives  of  that  ancient  land 
on  the  other  are  concerned,  unreserved  personal  intimacies 
between  individuals  and  families  belonging  to  the  intrusive 
and  the  native  stocks  respectively,  are  and  must  continue 
to  be  very  rare  indeed,  while  a  forced  and  unnatural  social 
intercourse  between  nationalities  in  every  way  so  dissimilar 
can  only  have  the  undesirable  result  of  aggravating  the 
mutual  contempt  and  dislike  already  existing  as  conse- 
quences of  ethnic,  climatic,  historic,  religious,  and  political 
causes  which  will  and  must  continue  to  operate  in  spite  of 
all  the  present-day  social  reformers,  however  amiable  and 
well  intentioned  they  may  be. 


237 


PART    II 

CERTAIN  HINDU  FESTIVALS  AND 
CEREMONIES 

THE  HOLI  FESTIVAL  IN  UPPER  INDIA 
A  LUNAE  ECLIPSE  IN  INDIA 
ASHES  TO  ASHES 


239 


Tnz  noLi 

FESTIVAL 


Q  241 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  H  O  L  I 
FESTIVAL  IN 
UPPER  INDIA 

Section  I.  —  Proces- 
sion through  the 
streets — Obscene 
exhibitions  — 
Rites  and  prac-" 
tices — Legends. 

T  was  the  season 
of  the  vernal 
equinox.  Since 
early  morning 
all  the  streets 
of  Lahore  had 
been  astir,  pre- 
senting a  pecu- 
liarly bacchan- 
alian appearance. 
Hundreds  and 
hundreds  of  men 
and  women  were 
moving  about  in 
garments  be- 
smirched with 
wet  daubs  of  pink 
or  yellow  colour ; 
their  faces  often 
disfigured  with 
patches  of  red 
or  purple  powder. 
Eude  fun,  a  sort 
of  dishevelled 
gaiety,  prevailed 
on  all   sides,  ac- 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

companied  with  laughter  and  foul  words  not  seriously 
meant  to  hurt,  nor  apparently  giving  much  offence,  though 
couched  in  terms  of  quite  primitive  indecency.  And  this  had 
been  the  prevailing  condition  of  the  streets  and  lanes  of 
the  city  for  several  consecutive  days. 

All  along  the  principal  thoroughfares  the  crowd  kept 
gradually  increasing,  and  through  the  idle  throngs  of  men, 
women,  and  children,  of  lean  oxen,  sacred  bulls,  and  mangy 
street  dogs,  I  threaded  my  devious  way  as  well  as  I  could, 
being  bound  for  a  house  in  the  street  known  as  the  Machhwa 
Bazaar,  or  Fish  Market.  As  I  went  along,  every  flat  house- 
top, every  window,  every  balcony  was  crowded  with  both 
sexes,  all  ranks,  all  classes,  and  all  ages. 

Presently  having  reached  my  destination,  I  was  provided 
with  a  seat  in  the  elevated  balcony  of  a  Hindu  merchant's 
house,  and  there,  at  leisure,  surveyed  with  interest  the 
striking  scene  before  me,  which  was  certainly  not  without 
quaint  picturesqueness,  a  characteristic  rarely  absent  from 
the  streets  of  Lahore  with  their  tall  houses  and  highly 
artistic  carved  balconies. 

The  thousands  who  occupied  every  coign  of  vantage, 
basking  in  the  warm  atmosphere  of  the  bright  sunny  day, 
seemed  drowsy  with  a  sort  of  amorous  languor.  Though 
with  Oriental  patience,  which  tires  not,  they  waited  and 
waited  undemonstratively,  there  were  indications  enough 
that  something  was  expected,  from  a  certain  direction. 
Presently  these  indications  became  more  pronounced,  as  down 
the  long  narrow  street,  fringed  on  either  side  by  three  or  four- 
storeyed  houses,  there  came  rollicking  along  a  noisy  band 
of  excited  revellers,  dripping  wet  and  bespattered  all  over 
with  glaring  daubs  of  red,  for  this  was  the  crowning  day  of 
the  Hindu  saturnalia,  misnamed  the  festival  of  Holi,  One 
glance,  and  it  was  evident  that  some  at  least  of  the  usually 
sedate  and  orderly  Hindu  people  were  indulging  in 
unrestrained  licence,  while  the  rest  were  looking  on 
appreciatively  under  the  influence  of  a  strange,  almost 
incomprehensible  blending  of  religious  mysticism  and 
exuberant  voluptuousness,  born  of  the  warm  breath  of 
spring  in  this  Eastern  land. 

Three  loud  instruments,  discoursing  from  their  brazen 
242 


THE   HOLI   FESTIVAL  IN   UPPER  INDIA 

throats  an  excruciating  travesty  of  European  music,  led 
the  way.  Immediately  behind  the  musicians  was  a  young 
fellow  on  horseback,  dressed  up  as  a  bridegroom,  attended 
by  rowdy  companions,  who  sang,  or  rather  shouted  lustily, 
rhymes  of  flagrant  indecency.  As  they  sang  and  gesticu- 
lated in  corybantic  style,  they  addressed  themselves 
pointedly  to  the  occupants  of  the  windows  and  balconies, 
aiming  at  them  their  ribald  shafts  of  buffoonery  and  coarse 
indecencies,  too  gross  for  reproduction  or  description. 

In  the  wake  of  the  bridegroom  followed  a  small  litter, 
behind  whose  flapping  screens  the  bride  was  supposed  to  be 
concealed.  Next  came,  lumbering  along,  a  big  springless 
cart,  drawn  by  a  sturdy  humped  bull,  mild-eyed  and  docile. 
In  this  jolting  vehicle  stood  two  or  three  tubs  of  blood-red 
water  out  of  which  four  or  five  men  and  boys  were  throwing 
the  crimson  liquid  about  promiscuously  to  right  and  left 
with  metal  bowls,  or  else  squirting  it  through  long  tin 
syringes  to  the  upper  windows,  where  the  spectators  of  the 
better  classes  were  huddled  together,  habited  in  their  most 
homely  garments  in  anticipation  of  these  rude  attentions. 

Presently  there  came  another  huge  cart  freighted  with 
that  incarnation  of  amorous  passion  Krishna  himself  and 
four  or  five  of  the  gopis  (milkmaids  or  rather  herdswomen), 
who  shared  his  wandering  affections.  The  god  and  his 
favourites  were  personated  by  a  handsome  young  man  and 
some  frail  if  fair  women  of  the  town. 

For  a  moment  the  steady  if  very  slow  movement  of 
the  procession  was  interrupted  by  what  looked  like  a 
scuffle  in  the  mud  of  the  street,  but  on  closer  inspection 
it  turned  out  to  be  a  gross  exhibition  of  indecency  per- 
petrated by  mimes  under  the  approving  eyes,  and,  I  believe, 
at  the  suggestion  of  two  native  policemen. 

The  crowd  surged  on  in  a  sort  of  intoxicated  fanaticism 
of  licentiousness.  As  hundreds  passed  along,  other  hundreds 
followed,  equally  bent  on  diffusing  the  immoral  contagion. 

From  the  streets  and  street-doors,  from  the  windows,  the 
balconies,  and  the  flat  housetops,  eager  onlookers  watched 
the  mean  and  tawdry  procession,  and  listened  with  open 
ears  to  the  libidinous  songs  or  catches  which,  from  time 
to  time,  filled  the  air,  as  one  party  after  another  passed 

243  ■ 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

along  the  road,  lialtiiig  here  and  there,  uuder  native  poUce 
direction,  to  give  the  preceding  parties  time  to  move  on. 

Nearly  all  the  women  spectators  had  their  faces  unveiled, 
and  with  the  girls  and  boys  listened  eagerly  to  the  licentious 
rhymes  shouted  by  the  bands  of  revellers  who  passed  along. 
Here  and  there  a  woman,  a  trifle  more  modest  or  more 
affected  than  the  others,  would  draw  her  chaddar  partially 
over  her  face  to  conceal  it  from  view.  One  of  them  I 
particularly  remember  on  her  picturesque  carved  balcony 
close  by,  as  she  displayed  the  whole  of  a  lovely  bare  arm 
in  the  act  of  slightly  adjusting  her  veil  to  half  hide  a 
pretty  face  from  the  too  ardent  eyes  of  some  rude  fellow 
in  the  crowd  below. 

But  other  bridegrooms  appeared,  other  gods  took  part 
in  the  procession.  Even  the  chief  of  the  gods,  Mahadeva, 
was  personated  by  a  whitened  man  in  a  yellow  flowing 
flax  wig,  a  necklace  of  immense  beads,  and  a  trident  in 
his  hand.     Beside  him  sat  his  mountain  bride  Parvati. 

A  group  of  youths,  carried  away  by  the  excitement 
of  the  occasion,  insulted,  or  more  correctly  amused,  the 
spectators  by  perpetrating  the  grossest  indecencies,  aided 
by  coarsely  fashioned  mechanical  toys  of  naked  simplicity, 
and  their  proceedings  were  not  resented  except  by  banter 
and  abusive  words. 

Again,  cartloads  of  crimson  water  came  lumbering  by, 
casting  their  contents  about;  again,  excruciating  music 
filled  the  outraged  air,  and  erotic  songs  or  rhymes  stirred 
up  the  passions  of  the  multitude.  Once  more  the  gods 
of  India  countenanced  the  uncouth  revelry  by  their  august 
presence.  This  time  it  was  the  elephant-headed  Ganesa, 
God  of  Wisdom,  in  attendance  on  another  Mahadeva  and 
his  consort,  and  then  another  amorous  Krishna  added 
sanctity  to  the  scene. 

Near  the  gods  of  Mount  Meru  was  an  open  carriage 
occupied  by  a  couple  of  courtezans  and  their  attendant 
musicians.  Not  far  behind,  on  a  sort  of  litter  borne  on 
the  shoulders  of  four  men,  appeared  a  singing-girl  who 
delighted  the  bystanders  in  a  soft  soprano  voice  with  a 
song,  apparently  quite  to  their  taste,  which  she  emphasised 
with  not  ungraceful  movements  of  her  small  hands.     As 

244 


THE   HOLI    FESTIVAL   IN   UPPER  INDIA 

she  sang,  she  showed  her  pretty  French  shoes  and  fine 
stockings  beyond  the  edges  of  her  silken  skirt,  and  looked, 
I  must  own  it,  really  attractive  in  her  jewels  and  fine 
raiment  and  her  neatly  arranged  coiffure,  plainly  visible 
under  her  gauzy  chaddar. 

A  comical  element,  or  rather  buffoonery  of  the  crudest 
type,  was  now  supplied  by  a  Sadhu  (ascetic),  a  real  one  I 
was  told,  who  was  seated  on  a  rickety  cart  which  swayed 
like  a  boat  in  a  storm.  He  was  attended  by  five  or  six 
persons,  his  chelas  (disciples)  perhaps,  who  shared  the  cart 
with  him,  and  he  had  at  hand  his  indispensable  iron 
pan  of  fire  and  his  chillum  (pipe)  for  smoking  churrus. 
As  he  passed  before  us  he  rose  up  on  the  shaky  vehicle 
to  make  a  silly  and  degrading  exhibition  of  himself.  After 
performing  an  absurd  little  dance  of  his  own  at  some  per- 
sonal risk,  he  suddenly  snatched  off  and  flung  about  the 
road  the  turbans  of  his  fellow-riders,  just  as  a  mischievous 
monkey  might  have  done. 

For  two  hours,  for  three  hours,  for  four  hours,  the  pro- 
cession, a  tossing  stream  of  humanity,  flowed  slowly  along, 
with  little  if  any  interruption,  and  very  limited  variety,  down 
the  narrow  road.  And  for  these  slowly  moving  hours  all 
classes  of  the  Hindu  community  had  been  pleased  spectators 
of  the  show,  and  presumably  enjoyed  its  gross  extravagances. 
The  pompous  native  official  was  there,  a  little  shyly  it  may 
be,  and  the  native  editors  of  the  local  Akhbars  and  Patrikas, 
no  doubt  just  for  the  sake  of  "copy,"  with  dangerous 
political  agitators  in  their  train.  Native  barristers,  hailing 
from  the  Temple  or  the  Inns  of  Court,  and  University  gradu- 
ates, did  not  disdain  the  show ;  while  merchants,  tradesfolk, 
artisans,  labourers,  and  beggars  crowded  to  it  with  zest. 
All  the  Hindu  world  and  only  the  Hindu  world,  in  its 
various  grades  was  here,  wife  and  family  included. 
Muhammadans  were  conspicuous  by  their  absence.  Not 
even  one  European  police  officer  was  present,  and,  unless 
they  were  in  disguise,  no  English  or  American  people 
attended  to  enjoy  the  treat  provided  for  the  benefit  of 
all  who  cared  to  partake  of  it. 

At  last  the  tail  of  the  interminable  procession  disap- 
peared down  the  street,  taking  with  it  the  noisy  discords, 

245 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

the  crimson  water,  the  erotic  songs,  the  complaisant  gods 
and  goddesses,  and  the  frail  sopranos  who  had  claimed  our 
attention  and  admiration ;  but  leaving  behind  in  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  many  a  one  the  seeds  of  an  immoral  harvest 
in  the  coming  year. 

"  Did  you  observe,"  I  said  to  my  companion,  "  how  that 
girl  at  the  window  opposite  was  listening  to  the  obscene 
songs,  and  beating  time  with  her  fingers  ? " 

He  nodded  assent. 

"  Did  you  also,"  I  went  on,  "  note  how  the  lad  carried 
upon  the  arms  of  his  companions  indulged  in  a  deliberate 
and  shameless  exposure  of  his  person  as  he  looked  eagerly 
towards  her  window  ? " 

"  I  did,"  said  the  Hindu,  with  a  bland  approving  smile. 
"  I  think  she  is  an  educated  woman,  for  I  saw  a  book  in 
her  hand." 

"  A  moral  reader,  no  doubt ! "  I  ventured  to  suggest. 

"  Perhaps  so,"  assented  my  friend  with  Eastern  imper- 
turbability, and  a  mind  so  steeped  since  childhood  in  the 
atmosphere  of  the  Holi  and  similar  joyous  nature-festivals, 
as  to  be  able  to  regard  with  vague,  undefined  religious 
approval  the  words  we  had  heard,  and  the  sights  we  had 
that  day  witnessed  together  from  the  pretty  balcony  in 
which  we  were  seated. 

The  uncouth  tragi -comedy  of  life  we  had  seen  was 
no  doubt  only  a  very  expurgated  edition  of  the  displays 
of  realistic  licentiousness  which  were  openly  indulged 
in  before  the  advent  of  British  rule,  and  which  are  prob- 
ably still  not  unknown  in  places  more  remote  from  Euro- 
pean influence  and  supervision  than  the  capital  of  the 
Punjab. 

It  is  difficult  for  a  non-Hindu  to  enter  into  the  feelings 
and  ideas  of  a  people  who  call  all  things  by  their  real  names 
without  euphemistic  disguises,  who  use  naked  words  to 
describe  natural  processes  and  functions,  who  while  dream- 
ing warm  dreams  of  sexual  gratification,  love  to  speculate 
about  the  soul  and  the  All-soul,  till  steeped  in  the  mysticism 
and  occultism  of  pantheistic  philosophy,  they  revel  in  the 
orgies  of  the  Holi  festival,  and  make  their  gods  partakers  of 
their  happiness,  dwelling,  while  the  licence  of  the  Holi  is 

246 


THE   HOLI   FESTIVAL  IN   UPPER   INDIA 

still  in  their  ears,  "  on  the  devotional  purity  the  grand 
festival  of  spring  awakens  in  Hindu  hearts."  ^ 

In  all  parts  of  the  world  are  known,  or  have  been 
known,  joyous  festivals — saturnalia,  carnivals,  and  what 
not — coincident  annually  with  seed-time  and  harvest,  or 
perhaps,  more  correctly,  with  the  equinoxes  and  solstices ; 
and  whatever  myth  these  festivals  may  be  associated  with, 
they  are  none  the  less  the  natural  outcome  of  the  effect  of 
the  seasons  on  the  emotions  and  passions  of  men.  Every- 
where men  have  experienced  annually  the  quickening 
effects  of  the  spring  renew  within  themselves  the  mysterious 
wonder  of  creation  and  the  joy  of  reproduction,  and  under 
this  spell  the  more  emotional  races  have  given  way  to 
unrestrained  mirth  and  debauchery,  casting  aside  for  the 
moment  all  the  ordinary  conventions,  often  even  the 
decencies  and  moralities  of  life.  The  Holi  is  such  a  festival, 
being  a  true  expression  of  the  emotions  of  the  Hindu  East 
at  spring-time,  when  the  warm  sun  which  bronzes  the  cheek 
of  beauty,  also  subtly  penetrates  each  living  fibre  of  the 
yielding  frame,  awakening  with  his  mellowing  touch 
sensuous  dreams,  soft  desires,  and  wayward  passions,  which 
brook  no  restraint,  which  dread  no  danger,  and  over  which 
this  metaphysical  people  readily  throw  the  mantle  of  their 
most  comprehensive  and  accommodating  creed. 

Has  one  lived  in  the  East  and  does  one  still  ask  why  the 
zenana  system  prevails  there,  why  early  marriages  are  there 
the  rule,  why  hurquas  and  yashmaJcs  are  imposed,  why  the 
harem  is  protected  by  high  walls  and  grated  windows.  If 
so,  he  knows  not  the  people  of  the  East,  and  will  never 
comprehend  them. 

Does  one  ask,  "When  will  these  things  all  cease  to 
be?"  I  hardly  dare  venture  a  reply.  Change  of  form 
there  certainly  will  be,  and  ancient  rites  and  customs  will 
put  on  decorous  disguises.  That  at  least  may  be  confidently 
predicted,  for  as  I  shall  presently  show  there  are  signs  of  it 
even  now,  in  the  ITola  of  the  Sikhs  and  the  Pavntra  (pure) 
Holi  of  certain  well-meaning  reformers. 

But  the  Holi  as  it  annually  rages — for  rage  it  does — 

'  The    Tribune  (a    Lahore    newspaper    conducted    by   Hindus),    6th 
April  1899. 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF  INDIA 

is  in  the  blood  of  the  Hindu,  fermenting  in  his  veins  under 
the  sun's  rays  of  his  native  land,  and  must  find  a  vent  for 
its  energies,  if  not  on  the  streets,  then  elsewhere. 

However,  there  are  in  India  so  many  forces,  mostly 
extraneous,  now  at  work  tending  to  the  discouragement  of 
indulgence  in  public  of  indecencies  of  any  sort,  whether  in 
connection  with  the  Holi  or  any  other  festival,  that  we 
may  trust  that  the  authorities  will,  at  no  distant  future, 
feel  able  to  put  down  with  a  strong  hand  such  objectionable 
outrages  of  propriety  as  I  have  referred  to;  and  towards 
the  attainment  of  this  desirable  end  the  support  of  the 
better  educated  classes  of  the  Hindu  community  may  be 
confidently  depended  upon. 

Certain  rites  connected  with  the  Holi  and  their  legendary 
explanations  are,  I  think,  of  sufficient  interest  to  be  noticed 
even  in  this  brief  account  of  a  very  characteristic  Hindu 
festival. 

"We  find  in  almost  all  the  Hindu  literature,  that  a 
spring  saturnalia  called  Basantotsava  was  very  reverentially 
observed  by  the  Hindus  of  the  old  day.  On  that  occasion 
even  princesses  and  ladies  of  the  noblest  classes  used  to 
dance  in  public  places  and  the  god  Madana  (Cupid)  was 
worshipped."  Thus  wrote  a  Hindu,  Pandit  Rishi  Kesh,  a 
few  years  ago.^  His  statements  may,  or  may  not,  be  wholly 
correct ;  but  the  Holi  or  a  festival  corresponding  with  it, 
in  point  of  time  and  resembling  it  in  its  joyous  extravagances, 
is  known  throughout  the  northern  parts  of  India,  including 
Bengal,  Orissa,  and  the  Central  Provinces,  and,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  the  procedure  or  ritual  is  not  the  same 
everywhere.  Wide  divergences  in  practice  may  be  noted, 
but  there  are  certain  resemblances  too.  Every  village  in 
Bengal  and  Upper  India  gathers  its  own  pile  of  wood  and 
other  combustibles  for  the  occasion,  and,  in  keeping  with  the 
hilarious  season,  a  good  deal  of  rough  liberty  is  sometimes 
taken  with  other  people's  property  in  providing  the  fuel  for 
the  annual  blaze.  In  the  cities  too,  wherever  possible,  each 
several  ward  has  its  own  bonfire  and,  at  any  rate,  every 
householder  is  able  to  burn  before  his  entrance  door  two  or 
three  logs  of  wood. 

^  Pandit  Bishx  Kesh,  Journal  of  the  Jnjuma7i-i-Punjab,  26th  April  ISPl. 

248 


THE   HOLI   FESTIVAL   IN    UPPER   INDIA 

Ceremonies  of  some  sort,  but  by  no  means  identical  in 
their  details,  precede  the  lighting  of  the  Holi  fire,  and  these 
ceremonies  afford  some  indication  of  the  ideas  underlying 
the  institution  of  this  festival.  In  some  places  it  is  the 
custom  to  circumambulate  the  bonfire  seven  times  with  ears 
of  barley  corn  in  the  hands  and  then  to  throw  them  into  the 
fire,  and  is  connected  with  a  belief  that  in  the  Holi  fire  is 
destroyed  a  monster  inimical  to  the  ripening  crops. 

Elsewhere,  as  in  Bengal,  is  burnt  "the  effigy  of  an 
uncouth  straw  image  of  a  giant  named  Maydhasoor,"  who 
was  destroyed  by  the  God  Krishna. 

But  a  more  elaborate  ceremonial  is  said  to  be  observed 
in  the  United  Provinces  where  the  Holi  is  celebrated  with 
the  greatest  enthusiasm. 

"  On  Basant  Panchami " — I  quote  fi-om  an  unsigned 
article  which  appeared  in  the  Pioneer  of  the  2nd  April 
1883 — "  a  pile  of  wood  is  erected  outside  the  limits  of 
the  village  or  Mahalla.  Here  by  a  vivid  imagination 
are  supposed  to  be  gathered  together  all  the  sicknesses 
and  misfortunes  which  threaten  the  inhabitants. 

"  Next,  a  stalk  of  the  castor-oil  plant,  together  with 
a  pice  and  some  betel-nut  is  planted  at  the  spot  by  the 
hand  of  the  ever-essential  Brahman,  who  by  his  won- 
drous power  causes  it  to  become  a  living  person.  At 
the  full  moon  of  the  month  of  Phalgun,  the  Hindu 
(man,  woman,  and  child)  smears  his  body  with  a  paste 
of  flour  and  perfumes  (called  whatan),  and  consigns  the 
scrapings  of  his  body  to  the  pyre.  By  this  act  he  suc- 
ceeds in  removing  also  all  future  evils  from  his  person. 
Then  each  one  throws  a  thread,  the  exact  length  of  his 
own  height,  into  the  heap.  The  moment  the  moon 
becomes  full  the  living  castor-oil  individual  gives  up 
the  ghost — the  pile  of  wood  with  its  accumulation  of 
future  disasters,  and  the  thread  substitutes,  is  set  fire 
to,  and  all  possible  evil  removed  for  at  least  a  year." 

Of  course  there  are  superstitions  connected  with  the 
Roll  and  many  legends  to  account  for  them. 

The  origin  and  details  of  the  above  rites  is  thus  explained 

in   a   Sanskrit    book   named    Nirnayamrita,  cited   by   the 

anonymous  writer  referred  to  above.     Long  ages  ago  when 

.Yudhisthira    reigned    in    Hastinapur,   a    dreadful    plague 

249 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF  INDIA 

visited  the  country,  and  caused  the  destruction  of  vast 
numbers  of  the  king's  subjects.  In  his  trouble  Yudhisthira 
consulted  Krishna,  at  that  time  incarnate  on  earth,  as  the 
King  of  Dwarka.  Krishna  assured  his  kinsman  that  the 
direful  plague  was  the  work  of  a  terrible  she-demon  named 
Holika,  who  destroyed  the  people  in  their  sleep.  He  pre- 
scribed the  rites  connected  with  the  annual  Holi  fire  as  an 
effectual  means  of  driving  the  monster  away,  and,  whether 
at  the  god's  suggestion  or  on  their  own  initiative,  is  not 
quite  clear,  the  people  indulged  in  foul  and  indecent  speech 
and  abuse  to  hasten  the  demon's  departure,  for  after  all 
Holika,  although  cruel,  was  at  least  modest  and  sensitive. 
By  this  crude,  inartistic  legend,  the  annual  bonfires  of  the 
Holi,  are  justified  by  the  Brahmas,  on  what  we  would  call 
sanitary  grounds,  and  is  so  far  interesting,  though  it  does 
not  really  appreciate  or  apprehend  the  vera  causa  of  this 
great  springtide  festival. 

Another  legend  explanatory  of  Holi  is  this : 

"  Holika  or  Holi  was,  they  say,  sister  of  Sambat  or 
Sanvat,  the  Hindu  year.  Once  at  the  beginning  of  all 
things,  Sambat  died,  and  Holi  in  her  excessive  love  for 
her  brother  insisted  on  being  burnt  on  his  pyre,  and 
by  her  devotion  he  was  restored  to  life.  The  Holi  fire  is 
now  burnt  every  year  to  commemorate  this  tragedy."  ^ 

According  to  Punjabi  expositors  of  the  spring  festival 
and  its  attendant  ceremonies,  there  once  lived  a  king  who 
acquired  by  austerities  and  magic  rites  so  much  power  that 
he  waged  successful  war  with  the  very  gods  themselves. 
Puffed  up  with  pride,  he  desired  to  be  made  greater  even 
than  the  god  Vishnu,  and  his  claim  to  this  superiority,  though 
generally  recognised,  was  boldly  repudiated  by  his  own  son 
Prahlad  a  devated  worshipper  of  that  deity.  Prahlad's 
royal  father,  irritated  beyond  measure  by  his  son's  preference 
for  the  god,  and  carried  away  by  an  overweening  conceit, 
resolved  to  put  an  end  to  his  own  son,  but  somehow,  through 
the  intervention  of  Vishnu,  all  his  attempts  to  kill  him  failed 
signally.     As  the  king's  wrath  was  not  appeased,  it  was 

^  W.  Crooke,  The  Popular  Religion  and  Folk-lore  of  Northern  India, 
vol.  ii.  p.  315. 

250 


THE   HOLI   FESTIVAL   IN   UPPER   INDIA 

decided  to  effect  Prahlad's  destruction  in  another  way.  The 
king's  sister  Holi,  who  had  reason  to  believe  herself  proof 
against  the  effect  of  fire,  proposed  to  sit  upon  a  blazing  pyre 
with  her  obnoxious  nephew  in  her  lap — in  full  expectation 
that  while  she  herself  would  come  out  scathless  from  the 
ordeal,  the  recalcitrant  boy  would  perish  in  the  flames.  But 
the  result  of  this  cruel  attempt  was  quite  the  reverse  of  what 
had  been  anticipated,  for,  by  the  will  and  power  of  Vishnu,  it 
was  Holi  who  was  destroyed,  while  Prahlad  came  forth  un- 
injured. The  multitude,  overjoyed  at  the  result,  rushed  in 
and  in  wild  delight  flung  about  the  ashes  of  the  pyre  of 
unkind  Holi,  and  the  event  has  ever  since  been  celebrated 
by  a  great  annual  festival. 

It  is  evident  that  this  primitive  legend  affords  no  justifi- 
cation for  the  lewd  excesses  of  the  Holi.  Possibly  a  festival 
based  on  the  Puranic  legend  of  Prahlad  and  his  wicked 
aunt  may  have  synchronised  with  a  joyous  festival  in  honour 
of  the  advent  of  spring,  and  got  mixed  up  with  it  in  the 
popular  mind.  If  so,  the  incongruity  I  have  alluded  to  is 
at  least  explicable. 


251 


THE  HOLI   FESTIVAL  IN   UPPEK   INDIA 

— continued 


Section  II.— The  Hola  of  the 
Sikhs — A  new  departure — 
The  presumption  of  certain 
women  reproved. 

HOSE  well-known  Hindu 
sectarians,  the  Sikhs, 
have  their  own  peculiar 
way  of  celebrating  the 
Holi  festival,  which, 
however,  they  name 
Hola,  apparently  to  dis- 
criminate it  from  the 
orthodox  saturnalia  with 
which  it  synchronises. 
I  learnt  that  the  best  spot  from  which  to  view  the  Hola 
procession — a  good  deal  of  Indian  religion  is  manifest  in 
processions  and  melas  (fairs) — was  near  the  Sonari  Musjid, 
so  thither  I  directed  my  steps.  On  the  way  I  met  an 
orderly  party  of  school  children  singing  bhajans  (hymns), 
and  ascertained  that  they  belonged  to  the  new  Sanathan 
Dharni  Sdbha.  They  were,  I  fancy,  supposed  to  be  engaged 
in  pure  devotional  exercises,  and  to  have  had  no  eyes  or  ears 
for  licentious  words  and  obscene  gestures,  which  could  be 
heard  and  seen  everywhere  in  the  streets  along  which  they 
had  passed.  Most  of  the  shops  were  shut,  for  the  owners 
were  not  disposed  to  risk  the  horse-play  or  endure  the 
insulting  chaff  of  the  unruly  man-in-the-street. 

Through  the  courtesy  of  the  custodians  of  the  Sonari 
Musjid  (the  golden  mosque),  I  was  accommodated  with  a  seat 
in  the  window  of  a  sort  of  anteroom  of  the  sacred  edifice, 

252 


THE   HOLl   FESTIVAL   IN   UPPER  INDIA 

overlooking  the  road,  and,  as  I  sat  there,  successive  parties 
of  men  and  boys  passed  by,  some  singing  songs  of  the  loves 
of  the  old  time,  and  some  songs  or  rhymes  of  gross  obscenity 
which  were  pointedly  addressed  to  the  women  and  children 
in  the  upper  windows  and  balconies  or  on  the  flat  roofs  of 
the  houses. 

Although  I  had  a  carpet  to  sit  upon,  and  a  long  pillow, 
or  bolster,  to  rest  against,  I  was  glad  to  leave  my  seat  in 
the  window  and  go  out  upon  the  steps  of  the  Musjid  to 
watch  the  Sikh  procession  as  it  surged  down  the  street. 
The  position  at  the  meeting  of  two  streets  was  an  ad- 
vantageous one,  as  it  faced  and  commanded  a  long  stretch 
of  the  road  along  which  the  crowd  was  approaching. 

A  band  of  musicians,  armed  with  two  cornets,  a  bassoon, 
a  clarionet,  a  big  drum,  cymbals,  and  kettle-drum,  was  drawn 
up  at  the  foot  of  the  steps  of  the  mosque  to  welcome  the 
advancing  crowd.  It  struck  up  the  once  popular  tune  of 
"  Just  before  the  Battle,  Mother,"  as  the  head  of  the  proces- 
sion came  within  two  or  three  hundred  yards  of  us,  while 
another,  and  equally  noisy  band,  which  had  accompanied  the 
Sikhs,  played  another  English  air  with  ear-splitting  energy. 
The  advancing  multitude  divided  off  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs 
into  two  streams,  passing  on  the  two  sides  of  the  mosque. 
When  the  main  body  of  the  processionists,  with  banners 
flying  and  singing  hhaj'ans,  arrived,  a  halt  was  made,  and 
gave  me  an  opportunity  of  observing  that  there  were  many 
leading  Sikh  gentlemen  in  the  throng,  although  almost 
disguised  out  of  recognition  by  the  coloured  paint  with 
which  their  faces  had  been  daubed  over.  Some  had  taken 
the  wise  precaution  of  protecting  their  eyes  with  goggles, 
against  the  showers  of  coloured  powders  to  which  they  were 
exposed  along  the  route. 

Flag-staffs  surmounted  by  spear-heads  were  borne,  in 
some  cases  at  least,  by  Akalis,  conspicuous  by  their  warlike 
headgear.  Any  halt  was  a  signal  for  quantities  of  red  and 
purple  powder  (for  both  kinds  were  used)  to  be  flung  at 
the  crowd  from  the  sides  of  the  road,  or  any  position  of 
advantage,  such  as  an  upper  window  or  balcony.  This  was 
a  reversal  of  the  procedure  followed  when  the  Hindu  pro- 
cession passed  along.     In  that  case  it  was  the  processionists 

-53 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

who  flung  the  coloured  water  on  the  bystanders  and 
onlookers.  I  noticed  some  women  casting  upon  the  Sikhs 
below,  handfuls  of  powder  from  the  low  housetop  of  a 
neighbouring  dwelling,  wliere  many  of  the  fair  sex  with  a 
number  of  children  were  gathered  together.  Against  this 
behaviour  a  loud  and  angry  protest  was  made  from  below, 
and  the  police  interfered,  it  being  too  indecorous  for  women, 
even  on  an  occasion  like  this,  to  presume  to  throw  the 
powder  on  men.  I  kept  an  eye  on  the  offenders,  and  was 
amused  to  discover  that  they  did  not  discontinue  their 
audacious  practices,  although  they  indulged  in  them  a  little 
more  circumspectly  or  surreptitiously. 

All  was  not  fun  and  ribaldry  in  the  streets;  for  the 
prevailing  licence  of  speech  and  act  occasionally  provoked 
a  fight,  and  hard  blows  were  then  freely  exchanged;  for 
Punjabis  are  tough,  and  though  usually  good-tempered  or 
more  properly  imperturbable,  can  lay  about  them  right 
vigorously  when  excited  to  anger.  And  the  meekest  might 
well  be  roused  at  some  of  the  tricks  practised,  especially 
on  the  country  bumpkins  who  visit  the  town  on  this 
occasion.  Spotting  one  of  these,  a  fat  bunneah  might  come 
up  to  him  hastily,  and  ask  if  he  was  disposed  to  earn  a 
trifle  by  just  helping  to  carry  a  pot  of  ghee,  urgently 
wanted  a  couple  of  streets  away. 

"  Why  not ! "  says  the  strong  countryman,  and  accompany- 
ing the  bunneah  to  a  place  where  the  jar  is  supposed  to  have 
been  left  by  another  fellow,  he  cheerfully  lifts  it  up  and 
places  it  on  his  head.  Before  he  has  walked  many  paces, 
the  pot  is  broken  on  his  head  by  a  blow  from  a  stick  or  a 
stone,  and  its  contents — not  ghee  certainly — flows  over  the 
unsuspecting  yokel,  to  the  huge  delight  of  the  jeering  rabble. 
A  practical  joke  not  unlikely  to  provoke  a  row. 

These  breaches  of  the  peace,  however,  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  hymning  Sikh  procession,  which  was,  as  indeed  it 
was  intended  to  be,  a  dignified  public  advertisement,  partly 
for  official  edification,  of  the  disapproval  of  the  Sikhs  of 
the  usual  licence  and  freedom  of  the  Holi,  and  it  was  at  the 
same  time  a  suggestion  carried  into  practice,  but  ludicrously 
inappropriate,  for  the  celebration  in  future  of  the  great 
joyous  spring  festival  of  their  ancestors. 

254 


THE   HOLI   FESTIVAL  IN   UPPER  INDIA 

What  legend  we  are  to  have  in  support  and  justification 
of  the  new  Hola,  remains  to  be  seen. 

That  this  Hola,  organised  by  a  certain  advanced  section 
of  the  Sikh  community  has  not  displaced  the  Holi  even  in 
the  sacred  places  of  the  sect,  will  be  apparent  from  the 
following  extract  taken  from  a  Sikh  newspaper : — 

"  A  correspondent  writes  from  Amritsar :  '  The  Holi 
festival  in  Amritsar  was  a  very  ugly  affair.  Even  in 
the  Golden  Temple  people  lost  all  sense  of  shame. 
Obscene  language  was  freely  used  in  the  presence  of 
Grunth  Sahib}  Formerly  no  one  was  allowed  to  put 
off  the  turban  of  a  Sikh;  but  this  time  no  authority 
appeared  to  be  exercised  on  the  lawless  mob.  This 
insult  to  Sikh  susceptibilities  in  the  most  sacred  shrine 
of  the  Sikhs  is  deeply  to  be  regretted.' "  ^ 

'  The  Sacred  Book  of  the  Sikhs. 
-  The  Khalsa,  12th  AprU  1899. 


2S5 


THE  HOLI  FESTIVAL  IN  UPPER  INDIA 

— continued 

Section  III. — Pawitra  Holi — A  pure  Holi  introduced  recently  by  some 
Indian  reformers,  backed  by  Christian  missionaries. 

S  an  example  of  the  retention  of  the  name  of  a 
festival,  while  entirely  ignoring  its  raison 
d'Hre,  and  discarding  all  its  traditional  pecu- 
liarities, nothing  could  well  be  better  than 
the  Pawitra  (pure)  Holi  inaugurated  in 
recent  years  by  well-intentioned  Hindu  re- 
formers in  conjunction  with  certain  Christian  missionaries. 

Let  the  following  notice  from  which  I  have  struck  out 
the  names,  speak  for  itself : — 

"  Pawitra  Holi 

"  will  be  celebrated  this  year  as  usual  for  three  days, 
viz.,  26th,  27th,  and  28th  February  1896,  in  the 
gardens  between  the  Lohari  and  Mori  Gates.  The 
following  programme  will  be  observed : — 

"  Wednesday,  27th  February,  Bhajans  by  Eababis  and 
5  to  8  p.m.  Latifas. 

Lectures  by — 

Lala on  "  Nauches." 

Babu on  "  Temper- 
ance." 

Bhai on  «  Holi." 

"  Friday,  29th  February,  Bhajans.  Exposition 

8  to  10  a.m.  from  Grunth  Sahib. 

Eecitation  of  Veda  Man- 
tras, by  the  boys  of  the 
Dayanand  High  School. 
3  to  4  p.m.  Bhajans  by  Eababis  and 

Latifas. 
256 


THE   HOLI   FESTIVAL  IN   UPPER  INDIA 

"  Friday,  28th  February,         Lecture  by  Eev. 


4  to  5  p.m.  on  "  Personal  Purity." 

5  to  8  p.m.  Dr. ^  will  preside. 

Brief  Eeport  of  the 
Punjab  Purity  Associa- 
tion will  be  read. 

Lala  will  move  a 

Resolution  expressing 
regret  at  the  unwork- 
ableness  of  the  clause 
provided  in  the  Muni- 
cipal Act  regarding 
brothels. 

Lala ^  will  address 

Lala \        the 

Lala J    meeting. 

Members  of  the 
Temperance  Society, 
Amritsar,  will  enter- 
tain the  public  with 
temperance  songs. 

"  All  are  cordially  invited." 
^  American  missionary. 


257 


A-LUtiAR- 


■■-■■    4 
K-  A 


'    4 ...^.:.., 


^AhP  -  SAGRE.t7>TAriK  AMRIT5AK; 

258 


CHAPTER   II 

A  LUNAR  EC- 
LIPSE IN  INDIA 

Scene  at  the  Pool  of  Im- 
mortality— Hindu 
legend  of  tlie  cause 
of  eclipses — Alms- 
giving —  Progress 
of  obscuration  — 
Legends  of  the 
Pool. 

T  was  in  the  small 
hours  of  a  De- 
cember    night. 
The  atmosphere 
was   crystal 
clear,    the     air 
m  keenly   cold.     In 
the   blue    sky 
sailed     the     full 
moon,    and    with 
the     attendant 
stars,    brightly 
beautiful,  made  a 
truly     glorious 
spectacle. 

At  my  feet  lay 
the  Pool  of  Immor- 
tality/ (Amritsar) 
mirroring  softly 
in  its  glassy  sur- 
face the  Golden 
Temple  of  the 
Sikhs  and  the 
tranquil  stars 
above. 

Standing      in 


-      A  LUNAR  ECLIPSE   IN  INDIA 

the  middle  of  the  pool,  a  spacious  sheet  of  artificial  water, 
the  temple  is  only  accessible  on  one  side  by  means  of  a 
stone  causeway  built  on  arches. 

The  sacred  pool,  which  is  rectangular  in  shape,  is 
surrounded  on  all  sides  by  wide  stone  and  marble  pave- 
ments and  many  trees,  beyond  which  rise  moderately  lofty 
buildings  of  Oriental  character  with  one  unfortunate  ex- 
ception, a  tall  clock  tower  of  modern  European  design, 
quite  out  of  harmony  with  its  surroundings.  Notwith- 
standing the  incongruous  bastard -Gothic  clock  tower,  and 
the  many  undeniably  rough  and  mean  features  about  the 
precincts  of  the  fane,  the  whole  scene  was,  under  the 
spell  of  the  soft  moonlight,  mellowed  into  a  picture  of 
dreamlike  and  captivating  beauty. 

With  some  Sikh  companions,  I  sauntered  slowly  round 
the  pool. 

Under  the  dark  shadows  of  the  fig  trees  many  men  and 
women  were  moving  about  noiselessly  with  unshod  feet 
upon  the  marble  pavements,  and  so  was  I  with  only  velvet 
moccasins  on  my  feet. 

Presently,  in  the  hush  of  the  still  night,  a  faint  shadow 
began  creeping,  like  the  mysterious  hand  of  destiny,  on  to 
the  edge  of  the  moon's  disc,  and  then,  suppressed  voices 
repeating  the  words,  "Dan  poon  ka  vala"  (This  is  the 
time  to  bestow  alms),  were  heard  on  all  sides,  as  an  army 
of  beggars  suggested  their  claims  upon  the  assembling 
people  with  many  alluring  hints  in  respect  to  the  great 
merit  and  special  advantages  of  liberality  at  this  momentous 
hour,  when  the  bright  moon-god  was  in  the  grasp  of  the 
evil  demon  Eahu ;  for  was  it  not  said  by  them  of  old  that 
it  was  this  disappointed  demon  who  through  the  ages  had 
been  pursuing  sun  and  moon  to  devour  them.  For  the 
cause  of  his  malice  we  must  go  back  to  that  remote  age 
when  the  gods  and  the  Asuras  at  the  suggestion  of 
Narayana  (Vishnu)  churned  the  ocean  to  obtain  Amrita 
— the  water  of  life.  What  wonders  occurred  on  that 
momentous  occasion  are  they  not  recorded  in  the  Mahab- 
harata;  but  here  it  will  suffice  to  recall  to  memory  that 
when  at  length  Dhanvantari  arose  out  of  the  seething 
ocean,  bearing  in  his  hands  a  vessel  containing  the  precious 

259 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

nectar  which  had  been  churned  out  of  the  deep,  the  Asuras 
claimed  the  prize  and  prepared  to  dispute  its  possession 
with  the  gods.  It  was  an  extremely  critical  moment !  What 
if  the  Asuras  should  drink  the  Amrita  and  enjoy  immortality  ! 

Immediate  action  was  necessary,  and  Narayana  was 
equal  to  the  emergency.  Assuming  the  bewitching  female 
form  of  Maya  (illusion),  the  god  easily  persuaded  the 
Asuras  to  part  with  the  vessel  of  nectar.  When  they 
discovered  the  trick  of  which  they  had  been  the  deluded 
victims,  the  Asuras  pursued  the  gods,  who  had  been 
hurriedly  taking  draughts  of  the  elixir.  In  the  company 
of  the  celestials,  a  demon  named  Eahu  disguised  as  a  god 
partook  of  some  of  the  precious  liquid,  but  before  it  could 
pass  beyond  his  throat,  he  was  discovered  and  denounced 
by  those  ever  watchful  celestials,  the  sun  and  the  moon. 

Instantly  Narayana  severed  Eahu's  head  from  his  body ; 
but  the  head  having  partaken  of  the  Amrita  was,  of  course, 
immortal,  and,  bent  on  vengeance,  has  ever  since  that  remote 
time  persistently  pursued  the  great  luminaries  through 
space,  swallowing  them  up  periodically,  only  to  find  them 
escape  through  his  severed  throat. 

And  now,  before  our  very  eyes,  the  terrible  monster  was 
once  again  gratifying  his  desire  for  vengeance,  as  he  had 
done  on  countless  occasions  in  the  aeons  of  the  past. 

Indeed,  this  critical  moment  afforded  an  opportunity  not 
to  be  lightly  lost ;  for,  as  the  Brahman  mendicants  declared, 

"  Yaha  ka  dan 
Ganga  ka  ashnan  " 

(a  gift  here  is  equal  to  a  dip  in  the  Ganges),  and 

"  Data  ka  dan 
Gareeb  ka  ashnan  " 

(the  rich  man  who  gives  is  like  the  poor  man  who  bathes). 
And  yet  I  noticed  that  the  liberality  of  the  visitors  was  on 
the  poorest  of  possible  scales,  usually  extending  to  nothing 
more  than  a  handful  of  grain,  doled  out  to  the  more 
importunate  of  the  priestly  mendicants.  Nevertheless,  on 
these  all-important  occasions,  there  are  always  some  Hindus 
who  are  generous,  and  perhaps  even  lavish  in  their  gifts  to 
the  poor — but  in  such  cases  the  element  of  self-interest  is 

260 


A  LUNAR  ECLIPSE  IN   INDIA 

often  too  apparent,  as  when  from  prudential  considerations 
ghee  (clarified  butter)  is  given  tb  the  Brahmans.  When 
this  is  done,  the  donors  first  melt  the  ghee  in  a  pot,  and 
then  view  their  own  countenances  in  the  liquid  butter. 
After  which  they  hand  it  over  to  the  beggars,  together  with 
their  mon  earthly  troubles;  a  shrewd,  if  selfish,  act  of 
liberality,  which  the  hereditary  priests  of  India  are  good 
enough  to  encourage. 

An  eclipse  is  a  favourable  time  for  securing  other 
benefits  besides  the  very  desirable  one  of  parting  with  one's 
own  immediate  griefs,  vexations,  and  difficulties ;  for  it  is 
well  known  that  mantras  (charms  and  spells)  written  during 
an  eclipse,  especially  during  the  period  of  total  obscuration, 
are  fifty  thousand  times  more  efficacious  than  those  written 
at  other  times,  and,  consequently,  the  fleeting  minutes 
are  diligently  utilised  by  many  a  sagacious  Brahman 
scribe,  with  a  keen  eye  to  his  own  future  gain. 

While  men  were  busy  in  these  very  mundane  affairs, 
the  mysterious  shadow  crept  onwards  over  the  face  of  the 
moon,  and,  as  the  obscurity  increased,  the  fulgent  stars  and 
planets  grew  even  brighter  than  they  were  before,  till  they 
literally  blazed  out  of  a  cloudless  sky.  Over  the  darkening 
earth  the  gloom  was  slowly  spreading,  and  the  umbrage  of 
the  banyan  trees  which  sheltered  the  shrine  of  Siva  at  one 
corner  of  the  tank,  looked  impenetrably  black. 

But  now,  one  by  one,  tiny  lamps,  lit  by  Brahman 
worshippers,  appeared  around  the  noble  sheet  of  water, 
lending  a  new  beauty  to  the  strange  scene.  Devout  Hindus 
of  both  sexes  entered  the  sacred  water  uttering  prayers, 
while  accommodating  Brahmans  took  charge  of  their  clothes 
and  lighted  charcoal  braziers  to  afford  them  warmth  after 
their  cold  immersion. 

There  were  hundreds  present  who  had  learnt  in  the 
schools  how  European  science  accounted  for  the  lunar 
eclipse;  but  in  the  increasing  obscurity  the  old  gods  of 
India  crept  silently  out  and  once  more  asserted  their 
ascendancy  over  the  hearts  of  even  such  as,  under  rational- 
istic or  other  influences,  had  become  alienated  from  or 
forgetful  of  the  national  faith  and  its  obligations. 

In  the  mysterious  awe-inspiring  gloom,  hereditary 
261 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

feelings,  early  impressions,  and  the  teachings  of  the  ancient 
religion,  recovered  their  potency,  with  the  result  that 
discarded  beliefs  were  almost  unconsciously  readopted  for 
the  present  occasion  at  least. 

The  twinkling  lights  kindled  by  the  Brahmans  multiplied 
in  number  as  the  darkness  blotted  out  the  celestial  moon- 
light, and,  in  the  murk,  enlightened  Hindu  reformers,  and 
cultured  graduates  of  the  University,  oblivious  of  consist- 
ency or  Western  science,  took  a  stealthy  dip  into  the  chill 
water  of  immortality  and  surreptitiously  responded  to  the 
appeal  "  Dan  poon  ka  vala." 

I  watched  it  all  in  the  weird  gloom  of  that  chill 
December  night,  and  realised  the  charm  of  the  hoary 
myth  of  Eahu  and  the  Amrita  churned  from  the  deep  by 
gods  and  demons,  as  I  recalled  it  again  to  mind  here  by 
Amritsar,  the  Pool  of  Immortality,  associating,  through  the 
local  legendary,  the  old  titanic  story  with  the  water  at  my  feet. 

Tradition  has  it  that  as  far  back  as  those  now  remote 
days  when  the  gods  lived  in  the  fair  "  land  of  the  five  rivers," 
there  was  at  this  very  spot  a  sacred  pool,  and  on  its  banks 
ascetics  and  sages  of  the  old-time  lived  and  worshipped. 
This  pool  was  known  as  the  Amrit  Kund,  because  a  portion 
of  the  Amrita,  or  nectar  of  immortality,  had  been  somehow 
spilt  or  collected  there.  For  Sikhs,  however,  wishing  to 
sever  themselves  from  the  past  of  Hinduism,  the  claim  of 
the  pool  to  consideration  depends  upon  a  very  much  more 
modern  event  connected  with  the  history  of  the  fourth 
guru  of  their  sect.  Guru  Kam  Das  (a.d.  1574-1581). 

The  story  runs  thus :  In  the  time  of  the  guru  just 
named  there  lived  a  man  who  had  a  beautiful  daughter, 
devoted  heart  and  soul  to  religion.  Being  for  some  reason 
or  other  angry  with  the  girl,  the  father  gave  her  in  marriage 
to  a  man  with  maimed  hands  and  feet,  some  say  a  leper, 
and  the  heartless  parent  scoflingly  bid  his  daughter  support 
herself  and  her  helpless  husband  upon  the  bounty  of  God. 

In  Indian  fashion,  the  young  wife  performed  her  duty 
to  herself  and  her  crippled  husband,  by  collecting  alms 
from  the  people  around,  and  in  her  begging  tours  she 
usually  carried  her  lord  in  a  basket  on  her  head.  One 
day  she  left  her  burden  in  the  shade  of  some  trees  near 

262 


iS^ 


A  LUNAR  ECLIPSE  IN  INDIA 

a  weed-covered  pond,  and  went  off  to  a  neighbouring  village 
to  beg  for  food.  While  she  was  away,  her  husband  noticed 
with  astonishment  that  a  lame  crow  came  and  dipped  its 
injured  legs  into  the  water,  and  by  doing  so,  not  only 
recovered  the  use  of  those  limbs,  but  had  its  plumage 
miraculously  bleached  to  a  perfectly  white  colour.  The 
healing  power  of  the  water  so  strikingly  manifested  might, 
thought  the  cripple,  benefit  himself  too,  and  so  he  crept  to 
the  edge  of  the  pond,  and  entered  the  water,  with  the 
result  that,  to  his  infinite  joy,  he  became  whole  again. 

When  the  dutiful  wife  returned  to  the  spot  she  could 
not  recognise  her  transformed  husband,  and  did  not  believe 
that  the  sound  man  before  her  was  the  cripple  she  had 
left  in  the  basket  under  the  trees ;  but  her  very  natural 
doubts  were  dispelled  when  the  Guru  Eam  Das  himself 
assured  her  that  the  man  was  indeed  her  own  husband. 

Here  then  at  the  site,  no  doubt,  of  the  ancient  Amrit 
Kund  of  the  fore-time,  was  a  fit  place  for  a  temple  to  the 
living  God,  and  Earn  Das  therefore  had  a  beautiful  tank 
excavated,  and  also  laid  the  foundations  of  a  place  of 
worship  where  the  present  building — which  is  of  considerably 
later  date — now  stands. 

Such  is  the  Sikh  legend  connected  with  the  famous 
"  Pool  of  Immortality  " — Amritsar — which  gives  its  name 
to  a  considerable  and  important  city.  The  legend,  strained 
and  artificial  in  its  association  with  old  Hindu  mythological 
conceptions,  and  uncouth  in  its  details,  is  neither  impressive 
nor  poetical ;  but  is,  it  seems  to  me,  fairly  characteristic  of 
Sikh  culture. 

Discussing  with  my  Sikh  companions  at  the  temple, 
Guru  Eam  Das  and  his  doings,  the  time  slipped  quickly 
by  till  dawn  began  to  appear  in  the  east. 

With  the  dawn  the  number  of  idle  spectators,  bathers, 
and  beggars  increased  considerably.  The  wet  marble  pave- 
ments, now  thickly  covered  with  a  mass  of  trampled  grain  of 
various  kinds,  presented  an  unsightly  appearance ;  my  velvet 
moccasins — leather  shoes  were  not  allowed  within  the 
temple  enclosure — were  soppy,  and  I  was  glad  to  escape 
from  the  motley  and  unpicturesque  crowd  which  looked 
both  silly  and  tawdry  in  the  sea-rching  daylight. 

263 


ASME.S  -- 

TO  AS/1ES- 

/ — ? 


CHAPTER 
III 

ASHES  TO 
ASHES 

Hindu  funeral  rites 
and  their  under- 
lying sentiments. 

ITH     rare     ex- 
ceptions,    the 
Hindus    of 
Northern 
India  cremate 
their    dead.^      I 
had      often 
chanced    to    get 
a  distant  view  of 

*  "  In  the  south 
the  ascetic  followers 
of  both  Siva  and 
Vishnu  bury  the  dead 
(Dubois,  56)  ;  so  do 
the  Vaishnava,  Vai- 
ragis,  and  Sannyasis 
in  the  north  of  India, 
and  the  Saiva  Jogis. 
The  class  of  Hindu 
weavers  called  Yogis 
have  adopted  a  simi- 
lar practice  (Ward,  i. 
201) ;  all  the  castes 
in  the  south,  that 
wear  the  Linga,  do 
the  same  (Birch,  i. 
27)."— Professor  H. 
H.  Wilson,  Essays 
on  the  Religion  of  the 
Hindus,  p.  196. 


ASHES  TO  ASHES 

a  Hindu  cremation,  and  had  gruesome  recollections  of  a  few 
I  had  seen  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges,  at  Benares,  and  else- 
where; but  never  having  witnessed  at  close  quarters  the 
ritual  actually  followed  on  such  occasions,  I  went  one  warm 
autumn  morning  to  the  crematorium  of  Lahore,  in  company 
with  a  Hindu  friend,  on  the  mere  chance  of  being  present 
at  a  funeral  there.  And  I  did  see  one,  a  most  quaint  and 
touching,  though  not  unbarbarous  old-world  ceremonial, 
amply  repaying  the  curiosity  which  had  led  me  to  pry 
into  the  customs  of  my  neighbours,  and  the  teachings  of 
a  religion  hoary  with  age,  but  not  yet,  by  any  means,  in 
decrepitude. 

The  place  set  apart  for  the  cremation  of  the  Hindus  of 
Lahore  is  reached  by  a  narrow  road  alongside  a  broad 
surface  drain  and  through  some  ill-kept  gardens.  It  is  a 
large  space  enclosed  by  a  high  brick  wall,  and  is  entered 
through  a  narrow  doorway.  Splendid  wide  -  spreading 
banyans  with  opulent  foliage  and  fine  pipal  trees  afford 
ample  shade,  and  lend  agreeable  picturesqueness  to  the 
quiet  spot,  where  I  noticed,  with  a  sort  of  uncomfortable 
eerie  feeling,  the  enormous  stacks  of  firewood  provided  for 
the  crematory  requirements  of  a  populous  city.  Just  out- 
side the  gate  is  a  low  platform,  about  ten  feet  by  seven  and 
not  more  than  fifteen  inches  high,  built  of  bricks  and  mortar, 
at  the  foot  of  one  of  those  sacred  fig  trees  which  grace  so 
many  a  quiet  scene  in  India.  This  platform  is  known  as 
the  Adhmarag  or  half-way  place.  Close  at  hand,  also  over- 
shadowed by  trees,  is  a  small  well,  furnished  with  a  wheel 
and  axle,  and  twenty  or  thirty  yards  farther  off,  near  a 
temple  of  Mahadeva,  is  a  masonry  tank  of  stagnant  water, 
which  I  found  covered  with  a  thick  emerald-green  scum. 

When  I  entered  the  crematorium  some  men  were  busily 
engaged  sweeping  the  grounds,  which  were  more  neatly 
kept  than  I  had  expected.  No  cremation  was  in  progress, 
so  I  had  time  to  look  about  me.  Here  and  there  were 
Samadhs,  or  cenotaphs,  if  they  may  be  called  so,  erected 
over  the  ashes  of  cremated  Hindus  of  a  past  generation ; 
but  they  bore  neither  date  nor  inscription.  These  very 
Eastern  structures  of  plastered  brickwork  naturally  attracted 
my  attention,  but  I  was  more  impressed  by  four  quite  new 

265 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

tombs,*  two  of  them  in  marble,  so  European  in  style  and 
finish  as  to  suggest  the  idea  that  they  had  been  recently 
transplanted  to  their  present  site  from  the  neighbouring 
Christian  cemetery.  They  were  Samadhs  like  the  rest, 
and,  though  bearing  tablets,  had  nothing  to  do  with  any 
actual  interments,  but  were  none  the  less  interesting  as 
visible  signs  of  the  imitative  spirit  of  the  educated  Hindu 
in  his  present  transitional  state.  I  would  not  like  to  affirm 
that  these  tombs  do  not  represent  something  more  than  that, 
for  their  durable  material  and  clear-cut  English  inscriptions 
may  possibly  be  the  outcome  of  a  new  craving  in  the  Hindu 
heart  for  an  abiding  place  in  human  memory.  I  hope,  indeed, 
it  may  be  so ;  since  it  seems  to  me  that  the  cremating  races 
who  happen  also  to  believe  in  metempsychosis  must  only  too 
easily  forget  their  ancestors,  and  lose,  as  the  Hindus  have 
done,  all  real  hold  of  the  genuine  history  of  preceding  times. 
While  I  waited  in  expectancy  in  the  grounds  of  the 
crematorium,  my  companion  was  telling  me  that  a  Hindu, 
whatever  be  his  rank  or  station  in  life,  must  not,  on  any 
account,  be  allowed  to  die  in  his  bed,  but  on  the  ample 
bosom  of  mother-earth,  nor  should  he  be  permitted  to  expire 
under  a  roof,  however  magnificent,  but  beneath  the  free 
and  open  expanse  of  heaven.  When  he  has  breathed  his 
last,  his  son,  or  other  near  relation,  should  place  in  the 
palm  of  his  now  pulseless  right  hand,  a  lighted  lamp 
(known  as  Diwa-wattee)  to  guide  his  faltering  footsteps 
through  the  great  unknown  and  untrodden  darkness  beyond. 
I  had  read  of  these  things  before,  and  as  I  listened  now  I 
felt  that  the  Diwa-wattee  in  the  dead  hand  appealed  to 
one's  feelings  with  a  pretty  sentimentality  not  to  be  denied ; 
but  as  to  the  other  practices,  those  connected  with  mother- 
earth  or  the  boundless  vault  of  heaven,  what  possible  defence 
could  be  offered  for  them,  when  it  is  too  evident  that,  with 
quite  unnecessary  cruelty,  they  must  inevitably  extinguish 
the  last  lingering  ray  of  hope  in  the  heart  of  the  dying  ? 
And,  sentiment  apart,  it  is  well  known  that  these  practices, 
in  conjunction  with  customs  which  grew  out  of  them,  have 
been  productive  of  no  little  evil  and  many  a  tragic  event  in 
the  Hindu  household. 

^  Illustrated  in  the  tailpiece,  p.  276. 
266 


ASHES  TO  ASHES 

Finding  that  no  funeral  arrived,  my  companion  and  I, 
having  nothing  better  to  do  just  then,  proceeded  together, 
on  foot,  towards  the  city.  After  passing  through  the  Taxali 
gate,  we  came  upon  a  funeral  party. 

The  corpse,  which  lay  upon  a  light  bier,  was  covered 
with  a  red  cloth  and  was  borne,  feet  forward,  by  four  men. 
An  Acharaja^  (a  low-caste  Brahman  priest,  whose  special 
function  it  is  to  conduct  funeral  rites)  was  in  close  attend- 
ance near  the  head  of  the  corpse,  which  tl^e  bearers  were 
hurrying  along  at  a  brisk  pace.  As  the  funeral  party 
wended  its  way  through  the  narrow  and  crowded  lane 
where  we  met  it,  the  Acliaraja  kept  crying  out  at  short 
intervals  "  Ram,  hoi  Bam "  (Eam,  say  Earn),  to  which  the 
corpse-bearers  responded  regularly  and  loudly  "  Eam,  Bhai, 
jRa?7i"  (Eam,  brother,  Ram)  as  they  scurried  on  their  way 
with  little  ceremony.  Occasionally  the  bier  on  which  a 
Hindu  is  carried  for  cremation  is  shaped  like  a  ship  fitted 
with  sails,  perhaps  of  coloured  silk,  and  adorned  with  flaunt- 
ing pennons ;  but  the  funeral  I  am  describing  was  a  very 
ordinary  one,  and  there  was  not  even  the  usual  band  of 
noisy  musical  instruments  in  attendance. 

Amongst  the  followers  was  one,  the  chief  mourner,  who 
carried  in  his  hand  an  earthen  vessel  like  a  Grecian  amphora, 
and  also  a  leaf -cone  containing  some  barley  meal,  wherewith 
to  make  pindas,  which,  although  only  pellets  of  dough,  are 
of  extreme  importance  in  Hindu  funeral  rites. 

While  we  followed  the  quickly  moving  procession,  my 
companion  explained  to  me,  with  reference  to  these  piTida^, 
that  after  death  they  have  to  be  placed  near  the  corpse, 
also  at  the  threshold  of  the  home  of  the  deceased,  near  the 
gate  of  the  city,  on  the  Admarag,  or  half-way  place,  and 
beside  the  pyre.  For  thirteen  consecutive  days  after  death, 
and  thereafter  at  intervals,  pindas  are  made  and  offered 
for  the  express,  if  somewhat  naive  purpose,  of  supplying 
materials  for  the  formation  of  a  new  body  for  the  freed 
soul,  an  operation  which  takes  place  very  gradually,  com- 
mencing with  the  most  important  member  of  all,  the  head, 
and  is  not  completed  in  less  than  nine  months. 

^In  the  United  Provinces  of  Agra  and  Oudh,  the  Acharaja  is  usually 
termed  Maha-Brahman  or  Maha-Patra  (the  great  vessel). 

267 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

Christians  and  Muslims  commit  their  dead  to  the  safe 
keeping  of  the  earth,  which  is  our  home,  in  the  sure  and 
certain  hope  of  an  eventual  resurrection,  but  they  who, 
like  the  Hindus,  stand  by  and  witness  the  complete  de- 
struction by  fire  of  the  human  form  divine,  who  see  it 
disappear  amidst  the  devouring  flames,  feel,  as  the  pinda 
ceremony  sufficiently  proves,  the  necessity  for  some  material, 
some  tangible  substance  wherewith  to  reclothe  the  disembodied 
soul,  if  it  is  to  have  a  real  existence  after  death,  for,  say 
what  we  may,  it  is  certain  that  a  purely  spiritual,  im- 
material existence  is  for  the  bulk  of  mankind,  may  I  not 
say  for  all  of  us,  an  utterly  unimaginable  state,  and  one 
that  most  assuredly  fails  to  satisfy  the  imperious  cravings 
of  human  nature  for  a  substantial,  sensuous  existence  in 
continuation  of  this  earthly  life. 

As  the  funeral  procession  passed  through  the  gate  of 
the  city,  the  Acharaja  changed  his  loud  monotonous  chant 
of  "  Earn,  bol  Bam  "  to  "  Har  bdse  so  Bindraban  ^  hai  "  (where 
God  is  present  that  place  is  Bindraban),  to  which  the 
corpse-bearers  now  responded :  "  Yihi  to  Bindraban  hai " 
(this  is  Bindraban).  These  cries  were  repeated  alternately, 
without  intermission,  till  the  body  arrived  near  the  entrance 
of  the  crematory  and  was  placed  on  the  Admarag. 

I  found  on  inquiry  that  the  deceased  was  a  physician 
by  caste,  and  of  the  sect  of  the  Gusains.  Some  thirty  men 
accompanied  the  bier,  and  in  default  of  a  son  the  adopted 
son  of  the  dead  man  was  the  chief  mourner  already  referred 
to.  Very  soon  about  forty  or  fifty  women  came  up,  some 
wailing,  though  not  ostentatiously.  "While  the  body  with 
its  head  towards  the  gate  of  the  crematorium  lay  upon  the 
platform,  the  Acharaja  in  attendance  repeated  some  appro- 
priate, or  at  any  rate  some  duly  prescribed,  sacred  Sanskrit 
texts,  or  mantras.  Then  the  adopted  son,  with  head  hair- 
less save  for  one  scalp-lock,  and  face  clean-shaven,  even  to 
the  eyebrows,  came  forward  to  perform  his  duty.  He  was 
a  young  man,  slight  and  spare,  with  a  look  of  mild  anxiety 
in  his  somewhat  sunken  eyes.     He  went  round  the  body 

^  Bindraban.  A  learned  Pandit  explained  to  me  that  Bindra  means  a 
company,  an  assembly,  especially  of  Davelas  or  gods,  and  ban  means  a 
wood,  a  grove.     So  Bindraban  may  be  rendered  the  grove  of  the  gods. 

268 


ASHES  TO  ASHES 

once,  pouring  water  on  the  ground  out  of  the  earthen  vessel 
which  he  had  brought  from  home.  At  the  completion  of 
his  circumambulation  he  lifted  up,  above  his  head,  the  same 
vessel,  which  was  probably  half  full  of  water,  and  then 
broke  it  to  pieces  on  the  platform  with  a  sudden  and 
startling  crash,  quite  close  to  the  head  of  the  corpse.  As 
he  did  so  he  uttered  a  cry ;  only  the  monosyllable  "  Ah," 
but  delivered  with  such  depth  of  feeling  and  perfection  of 
pathetic  intonation  that  it  filled  the  air  with  a  sense  of 
mourning  and  sorrow.  It  came  into  my  mind,  naturally 
enough,  that  the  breaking  of  the  clay  vase  was  symbolic 
of  man's  frailty ;  his  body,  like  the  waterpot,  being  destined 
to  eventual  and  inevitable  destruction.  However,  my  com- 
panion interrupted  my  reflections  by  informing  me,  in  a 
whisper,  that  at  the  crash  of  the  shattered  vase,  shivered 
to  fragments  on  the  Admarag  the  soul  of  the  dead  man 
had  become  dimly  aware  that  soTnie  member  of  the  family 
was  dead,  that  some  one,  or  other,  had  deserted  the  hearth, 
but  that  its  confused  consciousness  did  not  go  beyond  this 
vague,  if  painful  impression. 

This  part  of  the  ceremony  being  completed,  the 
Aeharaja  made  a  few  pindas  of  barley  meal  and  placed 
them  near  the  head  of  the  corpse;  then  followed  sundry 
sprinklings  of  water  with  tufts  of  the  sacred  Kusha  grass 
by  the  adopted  son,  under  the  instructions  of  the  same 
priest.  After  that,  the  body  was  removed  from  the  plat- 
form to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  well,  where  the  red  shawl 
was  taken  off.  The  corpse,  which  was  completely  swathed 
in  cotton  wraps,  had  water  poured  over  it  freely.  This 
done,  the  shawl  was  replaced,  and  the  deceased  was  carried 
towards  the  gate  of  the  crematorium  feet  foremost,  the  men 
exclaiming  "  Yihi  to  Bindraban  hai,"  while  some  of  the 
women  raised  a  subdued  wail. 

The  platform  had  hardly  been  vacated  when  down 
dropped  four  watchful  crows  from  the  leafy  branches 
above,  and  hopping  on  to  the  Admarag  quietly  swallowed 
up  the  pindas  of  barley  meal,  after  a  little  friendly  tussle 
amongst  themselves.  No  one  interfered;  no  one  resented 
their  apparently  rude  officiousness  ;  so  I  presume  the  crows 
were  quite  in  order,  and  probably  only  doing  their  duty. 

269 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

In  the  ample  grounds  of  the  crematory,  the  body  still 
lying  on  its  bier  was  laid  in  an  open  space.  The  men  now 
retired  while  the  women  gathered  round  it  and,  this  being 
the  appointed  time  for  the  demonstration,  wailed  aloud, 
beating  their  breasts  and  crying  "  Hde ! "  (Alas  !).  One 
woman  I  noticed  let  her  chaddar,  or  veil,  slip  off.  Indeed 
she  tied  it  under  her  arms,  leaving  her  shapely  head  and 
shoulders  exposed,  and  then,  beat  her  chest  and  forehead 
vigorously,  while  uttering  exclamations  of  sorrow  and 
tender  regret.  She  was,  perhaps,  the  deceased  physician's 
daughter,  or  his  adopted  daughter-in-law,  and  I  trust  I  am 
not  doing  the  good  lady  any  injustice  in  thinking  that,  even 
in  her  grief,  she  was  not  unmindful  of  effect,  not  indifferent 
to  the  impression  she  made  upon  the  living  who  are  ever 
more  present  than  the  dead. 

Meanwhile  some  male  members  of  the  family  went  off 
to  arrange  for  fuel.  Presently  a  large  quantity  of  firewood, 
in  logs  of  about  five  to  seven  inches  in  diameter,  was 
brought  up  in  a  hand-barrow,  and  as  much  as  was  needed 
for  the  cremation  was  soon  on  the  spot. 

When  a  part  of  the  fuel  had  been  piled  up  by  an 
attendant  attached  to  the  crematorium  and  some  straw 
had  been  laid  upon  it,  the  corpse  was  placed  upon  the  pyre, 
face  upwards,  with  a  small  earthen  pot  near  the  head,  to 
mark  or  indicate  its  position  later  on.  The  Acharaja  now 
repeated  some  texts;  the  wailing  was  redoubled,  and  the 
women  claimed  the  right  of  seeing  the  dear  face  for  the 
last  time.  To  gratify  them,  presumably  in  accordance  with 
immemorial  custom,  the  red  covering  was  removed,  and 
the  white  cloth  beneath  it  also  lifted,  so  as  to  expose  the 
dead  man's  face  to  view.  Sorrow  was  genuinely  expressed 
on  the  countenances  of  many  bystanders.  Tears  fell  from 
many  eyes,  and  the  manifestations  of  grief  on  the  part  of 
the  women  were,  if  not  in  all  cases  quite  sincere,  at  least 
sufficiently  dramatic.  After  a  minute  or  two  some  men 
interfered  to  end  the  painful  scene.  The  women  were 
gently  requested  to  stand  back;  the  cold,  set  features  of 
the  corpse  were  veiled  once  more,  and  the  body  was  turned 
over  face  doionwards  on  its  uneven  bed.  It  had  had  its 
last  glimpse  of  our  sun  and  sky.     Who  that  has  stood  by 

270 


ASHES  TO  ASHES 

the  unfilled  grave  of  a  loved  one  has  not  felt  the  cruel  thud 
of  the  clods  as,  spadeful  after  spadeful,  they  fell  upon  the 
coffin  and  gradually,  but  effectually,  shut  it  out  of  view  for 
ever  ;  but  the  inversion  of  the  corpse,  which  was  somewhat 
roughly  done,  seemed  to  me  still  more  distressing,  and  to 
savour  strongly  of  primitive  barbarism,  though  I  dare  say 
the  idea  underlying  it  is  that  the  man  should  enter  the 
new  life  as  he  entered  this,  face  downwards.  Many  of  the 
spectators,  although  of  course  prepared  for  this  uncouth 
proceeding,  were  visibly  affected  by  its  apparently  purpose- 
less inhumanity. 

The  coloured  shawl  was  now  replaced  finally,  a  few 
small  bits  of  sandal-wood  were  put  upon  the  body,  more 
for  show  than  anything  else,  and  then  heavy  pieces  of  wood 
were  rudely  piled  upon  it,  eliciting  from  the  women  many 
exclamations  of  pitying  sorrow,  a  sort  of  parting  valediction. 
In  this  fashion  was  the  pyre  built  up,  with  alternate  layers 
of  grass  and  wood,  the  corpse  being  in  the  centre  of  the 
pile. 

For  fire  to  light  the  fuel,  application  was  made  to  a 
young  yogiy  Goraknath  Ka  Padri  (priest  of  Goraknath)  he 
designated  himself,  officially  installed  within  the  walled 
enclosure  of  the  crematorium  in  a  hut  of  his  own.  This 
holy  man  seemed  to  have  nothing  more  important  to  attend 
to  than  smoking  churrus,  receiving  small  gifts,  and  supplying 
the  fire  required  for  kindling  funeral  pyres. 

With  the  lighted  torch  the  adopted  son  set  fire  to  the 
pile  on  which  the  corpse  lay,  and  in  a  few  minutes  both 
grass  and  wood  were  kindled  into  a  fierce  blaze,  from  which 
every  one  willingly  retired  to  a  distance.  The  women  now 
left  the  grounds  to  bathe  themselves  and  wash  their  clothes 
in  some  convenient  tank  on  the  way,  or  at  some  well-side 
in  the  city,  prior  to  re-entering  their  homes.  Gathered 
in  small  groups,  the  men  conversed  in  subdued  tones  while 
they  watched  the  roaring  fire  do  its  work  of  destruction. 

A  few  minutes  after  the  pyre  had  been  kindled  the 
Acharaja  instructed  the  chief  mourner  to  walk  round  it 
six  times.  Each  time  he  circled  about  the  blazing  pile  he 
carried  a  piece  of  grass  or  reed  in  his  hand,  given  to  him 
by   the   officiating  priest,   and   having  made    a   complete 

271 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

circuit,  threw  it  on  the  fire,  as  his  special  contribution  in 
the  shape  of  fuel.  The  first  and  second  time  the  adopted 
son  walked  round  bareheaded,  but  after  that  he  was  only 
too  glad  to  cover  both  head  and  face  with  a  wet  cloth  to 
protect  them  from  the  fierceness  of  the  heat,  which  would 
have  been  bad  enough  at  any  time,  but  was  intolerable  on 
that  bright  sultry  autumn  morning.  He  was  a  strange  and 
weird  object  that  gaunt  young  man,  with  sharp  features 
and  sunken  eyes,  as  he  appeared  sometimes  boldly  defined 
against  the  ruddy  flames,  at  other  times  in  uncertain 
outline,  like  a  phantom  dimly  visible,  through  the  fire  and 
the  clouds  of  white  smoke  which  rose  rapidly  upwards  in 
the  quivering  air. 

After  he  had  circled  round  six  times,  the  other  male 
relations  of  the  deceased  were  summoned  by  the  officiating 
priest  to  take  part  in  the  ceremony.  They  responded  to 
the  invitation  immediately,  and,  led  by  the  adopted  son, 
went  round  the  pyre  once  only.  The  attendant  attached 
to  the  crematorium,  a  ghoul-like  creature  who  had  built  up 
the  pile  on  which  the  physician's  body  was  being  consumed, 
took  the  chief  mourner  \)y  the  arm  and  began  pointing  out 
to  him  with  his  skinny  finger  something  apparently  of 
special  interest  amidst  the  flickering  flames. 

Ungainly  indeed  was  his  attitude,  as,  bending  from  the 
waist  to  get  his  eyes  upon  a  lower  level,  he  tried  to  make 
his  companion  see  where  the  deceased's  skull  was  still 
visible  in  the  centre  of  the  mass  of  red-hot  fuel. 

Handing  him  a  pole,  the  attendant  directed  the  chief 
mourner  to  break  the  glowing  skull.  He  accordingly  made 
a  thrust  at  it,  and  the  almost  calcined  bone  readily  gave 
way  under  the  impact. 

This  was  a  supreme  moment,  for  now,  at  last,  the  spirit 
of  the  deceased  was  finally  released  from  the  trammels  of 
his  body,  which,  no  doubt,  had  been  reduced  to  ashes  with 
the  express  object  of  effecting  this  ultimate  and  happy 
liberation. 

Each  man  present  picking  up  a  dry  twig  or  chip  of 
wood,  of  some  kind  or  other,  went  out  of  the  crematory. 

The  wandering  soul,  freed  from  its  prison-house,  but  still 
bound  by  earthly  ties  of  affection,  accompanied  them.     All 

272 


OF  THE 

\i   WNIVER6ITY 

OF 


ASHES  to  ASHfiS 

present,  not  excepting  even  the  liberated  spirit,  assembled 
together  a  few  feet  away  from  the  platform  outside  the  gate. 
Here  the  Acharaj'a  ^  repeated  some  more  texts,  ending  with 
these  words :  "  Yatra  Agata  Tatra  Gata  "  (Whence  he  came 
thither  has  he  gone).  As  soon  as  the  final  syllables  were 
uttered  all  the  men  broke  their  twigs,  or  chips  of  wood, 
simultaneously,  and  rose  to  their  feet  with  a  prolonged 
"  Ah ! " 

Such  was  the  conclusion  of  that  morning's  ceremony. 
The  living  departed  to  attend  to  the  duties  of  life,  but  the 
soul  of  the  dead  man,  homeless  and  alone,  and  now  for  the 
first  time  fully  conscious  of  the  severance  of  all  its  earthly 
ties,  was  left  to  find  its  own  way  to  the  realm  of  Yama, 
God  of  Death,  on  the  way  to  the  regions,  happy  or  otherwise, 
appointed  for  its  sojourn  until  the  time  of  its  next  re- 
incarnation. Hindu  imagination  has  created  for  the  wander- 
ing spirit  just  released  from  the  bondage  of  the  flesh,  many 
dire  difficulties  and  troubles,  including  the  passage  of  an 
abominable  flood,  the  dread  Vaitarani  Kiver.  The  Egyptians 
of  the  old  time  held  somewhat  similar  ideas.  According  to 
Buddhistic  belief,  the  disembodied  spirit,  the  poor  errant 
solitary  soul,  has  to  face  the  Powers  of  Darkness  arrayed  in 
monstrous  shapes  to  terrify  it ;  and  Christianity,  too,  has 
not  been  free  from  notions  of  terrible  beings  who,  under 
the  command  of  the  "Prince  of  the  Power  of  the  Air," 
oppose  the  upward  flight  of  the  liberated  soul,  as  indeed 
St.  Anthony,  "carried  away  in  spirit,"  knew  from  actual 
experience.-  Perhaps  the  latest  reminder  we  have  of  this 
belief  is  in  the  impotent  scorn  hurled  by  the  demons  at 
the  disembodied  soul  of  the  Christian,  as  pictured  in  "  The 
Dream  of  Gerontius,"  so  familiar  to  lovers  of  music. 

The  rite  of  cremation,  well  known  in  many  countries  of 
the  ancient  world,  has  a  special  justification  in  the  case  of 
the  Hindu  because  of  his  belief  in  the  reincarnation  of  the 
soul  in  a  new  body,  human  or  other,  a  belief  which  excludes 

'  The  story  of  the  origin  of  the  Brahman  caste  of  the  Acharajas,  or 
funeral  priests,  is  related  in  Dr.  John  Wilson's  Indian  Caste,  vol.  ii. 
p.  175. 

^  St.  Athanasius  cited  in  The  Monastic  Life  from  the  Fathers  of  the  Desert 
to  Charlemagne,  by  Thomas  W.  Allies,  pp.  36,  37. 

s  273 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF  INDIA 

the  idea  of  the  resurrection  of  the  hody  as  held  by  Christians  ^ 
and  Muslims,  who  ordinarily  look  forward  to  the  miraculous 
reanimation  of  the  corpse  by  divine  decree  at  the  Day  of 
Judgment.  From  the  Hindu  point  of  view,  it  is  evident 
that  when  the  soul  quits  its  mortal  tenement,  that  tenement 
is  of  no  further  use  or  value,  and  its  destruction  by  the 
purifying  element  of  fire  is  for  him  a  reasonable  and  con- 
venient mode  of  disposing  of  the  dead.  This  seems  to  me  a 
natural  result  of  the  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls, 
yet  some  scholars  are  known  to  maintain,  rather  oddly  I 
think,  that  the  embalming  of  dead  animals  amongst  the 
Egyptians  in  the  old  time  was  due  to  this  very  doctrine.^ 

A  few  days  later  I  went  again  to  the  crematorium  for  a 
further  inspection  and  to  clear  up  a  few  points.  Two  or 
three  diminutive  toy-tents  only  a  few  inches  high,  made  of 
white  or  coloured  cloth,  had  been  pitched  amidst  the  grey 
ashes  which  marked  the  sites  of  some  previous  cremations. 
They  looked  odd,  indeed  ridiculous,  did  these  little  toy-tents, 
but  they  were  nevertheless  touching  evidences  of  human 
affection  and  sympathy,  having  been  put  up  by  loving 
hands  in  the  fond,  if  fatuous,  hope,  of  affording  a  refuge 
from  the  inclemencies  of  the  weather  to  dear,  disembodied 
spirits,  believed  to  be  still  lingering  disconsolately  near  their 
earthly  homes.  In  connection  with  these  tiny  tents  I  was 
told  that  they  were  in  each  case  erected  on  the  fourth  day 
after  the  lighting  of  the  funeral  pyre,  as  on  that  day  the 
nearest  relatives  of  the  deceased  pay  their  last  visit  to  the 
crematorium  to  search  amongst  the  ashes  for  such  fragments 
of  bone  as  may  have  escaped  total  incineration,  with  the 
object  not  of  preserving  them  (for  urn-burial  is  not  a  Hindu 
practice)  but  of  committing  them  to  the  sanctifying  waters 
of  the  sacred  Ganges,  or  of  some  other  running  stream  more 
accessible  if  less  renowned.^ 

At  Hardwar,  I  had  myself  seen  under  the  clear  water 

^  For  some  quaint  observations  on  this  subject,  vide  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
Hydriota2)hia,  Urnc-Buriall,  at  the  end  of  chapter  iii. 

^  Dr.  Lortet  in  Bcvv^  des  Deux  Mondes,  15  Mai  1905. 

^  It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  remark  that  the  idea  whicli  directs  the 
placing  of  a  lighted  lamp  (the  Diwa-wattee  already  referred  to)  in  the  hand 
of  the  corpse  as  soon  as  life  is  extinct,  is  not  in  harmony  with  these  later 
ceremonies  and  their  underlying  sentiments. 

274 


ASHES  TO  ASHES 

which  laves  the  sacred  ghat,  white  fragments  of  the  bones 
of  departed  Hindus  which  had  been  conveyed  thither  by 
considerate  kinsfolk  from  probably  long  distances,  and 
dutifully  consigned  to  the  Ganges  at  one  of  the  most  holy 
places  on  its  banks.^ 

While  I  talked  with  the  attendants,  my  attention  was 
directed  to  a  number  of  small  owls  staring  wonderingly  at 
us  with  queer  round  eyes,  from  amidst  the  leafy  recesses 
of  the  beautiful  banyan  tree  near  which  I  was  standing. 
A  handful  or  two  of  grey  ashes,  representing  the  remains 
of  a  fellow-creature  and  of  the  fuel  which  had  been  used  in 
his  cremation,  were  strewn  at  my  feet,  mixed  with  the 
tawny  dust  of  the  soil  on  which  they  lay.  The  human 
body  had  practically  vanished  into  thin  air,  and  these  ashes 
now  commingled  with  the  dust  of  the  earth  were  all  the 
visible  relics  of  it.  The  grey  fluffy  little  birds  overhead 
became  uneasy  and  restless,  apparently  at  my  too  long 
confabulation  in  their  neighbourhood.  I  could  not  help 
turning  my  eyes  in  their  direction,  and  the  sapient  looks 
with  which  the  owlets  met  my  gaze  suggested  the  mournful 
reflection  that,  after  all,  these  staid  inhabitants  of  the  place 
probably  knew  quite  as  much,  or  quite  as  little,  about  a  life 
beyond  the  veil,  as  any  one  who  had  ever  visited  or  would 
ever  set  foot  in  the  Lahore  crematorium. 

On  my  homeward  way  I  stopped  at  the  pretty  Christian 
cemetery  hard  by,  attracted  to  its  peaceful  silence  by  fond 
if  painful  memories.  As  I  wandered  amongst  the  quiet 
tombs  which  testified  by  their  neat  appearance  and  the 
floral  tributes  which  adorned  them,  that  the  long-buried 
dead  were  still  affectionately  remembered,  I  felt  that  the 
trim  graveyard  with  its  pretty  marble  and  sandstone 
monuments,  slumbering  in  the  hot  sunshine,  was  far  more 
conducive  to  tender  and  elevating  sentiments,  far  more 
humanising  than  any  crematorium  could  ever  be.  And  I 
pondered  with  deep  regret,  that  "  God's  acre "  might  some 
day  be  a  thing  of   the   past;    for   sanitarians,  with  their 

*  Readers  who  desire  ampler  details  of  the  post-cremation  rites  connected 
with  Hindu  exequies  iu  Upper  India  are  referred  to  Meligioii  and  Folk-lore 
of  Northern  India,  by  W.  W.  Crooke,  vol.  ii.  pp.  55-59,  and  Brief  Review 
of  the  Caste  System,  by  Mr.  J.  C.  Nesfield,  pp.  69,  70. 

275 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

microbes  and  bacilli,  will  probably  so  work  upon  the 
timidity  of  a  neurotic  society  that  in  the  interests  of 
Mammon  and  pleasure,  Christian  burial  will  gradually  be 
replaced  by  pagan  cremation.  I  appreciate  the  arguments 
put  forward  in  support  of  cremation,  and  the  sentiments 
which  prompt  men  like  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  and  Mr.  W. 
E.  H.  Lecky  to  have  their  remains  incinerated,  yet  I  cannot 
help  believing  that  should  this  practice  become  general, 
the  world  would  assuredly  be  the  poorer  for  the  change, 
paying  a  heavy  moral  price  for,  at  best,  a  doubtful  physical 
advantage.^  Besides,  is  it  a  small  matter  that  the  practice 
of  inhumation  has  given  us  those  relics  of  pride  and  affec- 
tion, the  stately  tombs  of  bygone  generations,  from  the 
Pyramids  of  Egypt  and  the  Mausoleum  at  Halicarnassus  to 
the  Taj  of  Agra  and  the  royal  sepulchre  at  Frogmore,  as 
well  as  the  humbler,  but  perhaps  more  touching  memorials 
of  domestic  affection  scattered  through  the  graveyards  and 
churches  of  Christendom  ? 

^  Quarterly  Eeview,  July  1900. 


276 


PART    III 
ISLAM    IN    INDIA 

THE  MUHAREAM 
FAQUIRS 


277 


,,**-s 


^^L 


T/AE. 

MOMARRAM 


TMDTAtlAn'PROGE55IOrt^ 


CHAPTER   I 

THE  MUHARKAM 

Section  I. — The  his- 
torical basis  of  the 
great  celebration, 

OUNGEST  of  the 
great  world- 
religions,  and 
still  possessed 
of  much  of  that 
vigorous  vitality 
which  ensured  the 
wonderful  tri- 
umphs of  its 
adolescence,  Islam , 
from  every  point 
of  view,  affords  a 
subject  well 
worthy  of  study. 
The  Muharram 
celebration,  in- 
spired as  it  is  by 
gory  tragedies  of 
the  earliest  days 
of  Islam,  and  still, 
after  thirteen 
hundred  years, 
capable  of  stirring 
to  passionate  grief 
the      hearts      of 


2/9 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

millions  of  Muhammadans  in  many  countries,  is  an  annual 
event  which,  even  if  little  understood  or  appreciated  by  the 
European  resident  in  India,  cannot  have  quite  escaped  his 
perhaps  unwilling  notice. 

Of  Islam  itself  it  may  be  well  to  recall  to  memory  that 
though  it  origina,ted  in  the  early  days  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury of  the  Christian  era,  it  has  lost  little  of  the  fervour 
and  fanaticism  which,  after  ensuring  its  initial  triumphs, 
enabled  it  to  practically  displace  Christianity  in  Western 
Asia,  to  conquer  Constantinople,  and  hold  with  a  masterful 
hand  considerable  European  and  African  provinces  of  the 
Koman  Empire,  to  retain  its  grip  upon  Jerusalem  against 
the  enthusiastic  valour  of  the  Crusaders,  to  inspire  at  the 
present  time  the  loyal  devotion  of  over  two  hundred  millions 
of  the  human  race,  and  still  to  win  daily  new  adherents  to 
the  faith  in  both  Asia  and  Africa. 

In  the  British  Empire  there  are  ninety-four  millions  of 
persons  who  profess  the  Muhammadan  religion,  and  of  these 
over  sixty-two  millions  belong  to  India,  being  four  millions 
in  excess  of  the  entire  Christian  population  to  be  found, 
according  to  the  latest  census,  throughout  the  dominions 
of  H.M.  King  Edward  vii.,  a  striking  fact  well  worth 
pondering  in  this  twentieth  century  of  the  Christian  era. 
The  Indian  Muslims  are  divided  very  unequally  into  two 
principal  sects,  the  Sunnis  or  traditionists,  and  the  Shiahs 
or  dissenters,  the  latter  being  very  much  in  the  minority ; 
and  between  these  two  sects  the  bitterest  enmity  often 
prevails,  leading  sometimes  to  armed  antagonism  and  the 
spilling  of  much  blood.  Even  now,  after  over  1200  years 
since  the  date  of  the  events  which  occasioned  the  schism, 
the  Sunnis  and  the  Shiahs  are  only  too  ready  to  fly  at  each 
other's  throats.  So  lately  as  July  1903  we  had  a  Sunni 
faquir  in  Tirah  on  the  British  Indian  frontier  getting  up 
a  crusade  against  the  Shiahs  in  the  border-land,  with  the 
result  that  some  sharp  fighting  took  place  in  the  Mani 
Khel  country,  with  not  inconsiderable  casualties  amongst 
the  fanatical  tribesmen  on  either  side. 

Besides  the  Sunnis  and  Shiahs  there  are  also  to  be  found 
in  the  ranks  of  Indian  Muslims  the  reforming  Wahabis,  the 
mystics  known  as  Sujis,  and  many  other  sectarians  whom 

280 


THE  muharram: 

I  need  not  name  here.  Besides  these,  there  are  a  few 
fanatics  known  as  Ghazis,  burning  with  religious  zeal  against 
all  infidels,  amongst  whom  European  Christians  probably 
hold  the  foremost  place. 

Of  the  Muhammadans  of  India  very  few  are  of  the 
stock  of  the  Muslim  conquerors  of  the  country,  and  still 
fewer  can  lay  claim  to  purity  of  descent.  Nevertheless,  in 
many  families  linger  traditions  and  written  evidences  of 
dominion  and  power  enjoyed  only  a  few  generations  back. 
However,  the  vast  majority  of  the  Muhammadans  of  British 
India  are  converted  Hindus  or  the  descendants  of  such  con- 
verts, by  far  the  greatest  number,  no  less  than  25,265,342, 
being  BeTigalis,  a  most  important  fact,  which  is  quite  lost 
sight  of  by  most  newspaper  and  magazine  writers,  who, 
when  speculating  about  the  future  of  India,  in  the  event  of 
its  abandonment  hy  the  British,  assert  quite  confidently  that 
the  dominion  of  the  countries  south  of  the  Himalayas  would 
inevitably  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Indian  Muhammadans. 
Such  predictions  are  ill-advised;  but  as  they  are  often 
made,  I  would  suggest  to  the  political  seers  just  referred 
to,  a  careful  study  of  the  geographical  distribution  of  the 
Indian  Muhammadans,  and  the  nationalities  to  which  they 
belong,  as  a  preliminary  to  these  vaticinations. 

Stated  broadly,  the  religious  practice  of  Indian  Muham- 
madans consists  largely  in  pilgrimages  to  the  tombs  of 
saints.  It  is  true  that  the  regular  call  (azdln)  to  prayers 
rises  five  times  each  day  from  the  proud  minarets  of  the 
mosques  in  every  city  of  the  land,  but,  as  in  Christian 
Europe,  only  a  small  minority  observe  strictly  the  obliga- 
tions of  their  faith.  The  great  majority  are  heedless  of  the 
azans  and  the  services  in  the  Masjid,  neglect  all  private 
devotions,  and  do  not  go  beyond  an  attendance  at  the 
mosque  twice  a  year  on  the  occasions  of  the  two  principal 
Islamic  festivals,  Idu'1-Azha  ^  and  the  Idu'l-Fitr.^ 

The  relicrious  observances  of  Indian  Muslims  have  little 


^  IdiCl-Azha  or  IcV-i-Zuha,  "  the  feast  of  sacrifice,"  is  a  part  of  the  rites 
of  the  annual  pilgrimage  to  Mecca,  and  it  is  also  observed  throughout  the 
Muhammadan  world  as  a  great  festival. 

^  Idu'l-Fitr,  "the  festival  of  the  breaking  of  the  fast,"  which  follows 
the  great  fast  of  the  Ramazan,  is  especially  one  of  almsgiving. 

2gl 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

of  the  noise  and  bustle  which  are  associated  with  so  many 
of  the  Hindu  religious  festivals.  But  once  every  year  in 
the  month  of  Muharram,  which  is  the  first  month  of  the 
Muslim  year,  the  Muhammadans  of  the  Shiah  sect  appear 
in  a  new  and  impetuously  demonstrative  aspect,  filling  the 
streets  of  the  principal  Indian  cities  with  a  certain  regulated 
uproar,  of  which  the  keynote  is  fanatical,  yet  well-disciplined 
lamentation.  At  such  seasons  noisy  drums  disturb  the  air 
with  their  throbbing  dissonance,  and  cries  not  of  joy  but  of 
sorrow  are  heard  above  the  beating  of  the  drums.  After 
nightfall  torches  flash  in  the  thoroughfares,  and  expert 
performers  do  honour  to  the  occasion  by  weaving  flame- 
figures  in  the  air  with  the  aid  of  long  poles  having  a 
lighted  torch  fixed  at  each  extremity.  This  annual  orgie 
of  mingled  sorrow,  bustle,  and  unhealthy  emotionalism  is 
the  public  and  therefore  prominent  feature  of  the  imposing 
ceremonial  known  as  "  the  Muharram." 

I  have  witnessed  the  Muharram  in  different  parts  of 
Northern  India  and  also  in  the  Madras  Presidency,  and 
have  noticed  that  the  celebration  has  in  each  place  its  local 
peculiarities.  There  are,  however,  certain  features  fairly 
common  to  all. 

The  Muharram  is  held  by  the  Shiah  sect,  and  extends 
over  ten  consecutive  days.  The  more  orthodox  sect  of  the 
Sunnis  refrain  from  participation  in  these  doings;  but 
it  happens  that  on  the  10th  of  the  Muharram  falls  the 
Ashurad,  the  day  on  which,  according  to  the  traditions,  God 
created  our  first  parents,  Adam  and  Eve,  and  this  the 
Sunnis  piously  observe.  However,  in  India,  at  any  rate,  many 
more  Muslims  participate  in  the  Muharram  than  woukl  care 
to  be  ranged  under  the  exclusive  banner  of  the  Shiah  sect. 

Of  the  ten  days  of  the  Muharram  celebrations,  nine  are 
devoted  to  mdtam  or  lamentation  on  account  of  the  assas- 
sination of  Ali,  the  Prophet's  son-in-law,  in  the  mosque  at 
Kufa,  of  the  untimely  death  of  Hasan,  the  Prophet's  grand- 
son, who  was  poisoned  by  his  wife  Jadah,  and  more  especi- 
ally of  the  tragic  fate  of  Imami  Husain,  who  was  killed 
at  Karbala  fighting  desperately  under  circumstances  both 
touching  and  dramatic. 

*  Imam  means  Sovereign-Pontiff. 
282     ^ 


THE  MUHARRAM 

For  the  comprehension  of  the  purpose  and  origin  of  the 
celebration  of  the  Muharram,  it  is  desirable  to  take  note 
of  certain  events  which  occurred  subsequent  to  the  death 
of  the  Prophet-founder  of  Islam.  As  is  usual  in  such  cases, 
there  are  certain  discrepancies  in  the  narratives  and  tradi- 
tions which  have  come  down  to  us ;  but  the  historicity  of 
the  more  important  features  of  the  case  may  be  depended 
upon  and  freely  accepted. 

The  immediate  successors  of  the  Prophet  Muhammad, 
as  heads  of  both  Church  and  State  were : 

1.  Ahubahr    (a.d.    632-634),   the    father   of    Ayishah, 

Muhammad's  favourite  wife.^ 

2.  Umar  (Omar)  (a.d.  634-644),  the  father  of  Hafsah, 

Muhammad's  third  wife.  He  was  assassinated  by 
a  Persian  slave. 

3.  Usman  (Othman)  (a.d.   644-656),   the   secretary   of 

Muhammad  and  also  his  son-in-law,  having  married 
two  of  the  Prophet's  daughters,  Euqaiyah  and 
Umman  Kulsum.  He  was  murdered  by  the  son 
of  Abubakr  and  other  conspirators. 

4.  AH    (a.d.     656-660),    son-in-law    and    cousin    of 

Muhammad,  who  was  elected  to  the  office  in  spite 
of  the  opposition  of  Ayishah,  his  implacable  enemy. 
He  was  murdered  in  the  mosque  of  Kufa  by  an 
assassin  named  Abd-ur-rahman. 

5.  Al-Hasan  (a.d.   660),  son   of  Ali  and  grandson   of 

the  Prophet.  Eeigned  for  about  six  months  and 
then  abdicated  in  favour  of  Muawiyah.  He  was 
subsequently  (a.d.  668)  poisoned  by  his  wife  Jadah 
at  the  instigation  of  Yazid,  Muawiyah's  son,  who 
promised  to  marry  her. 

6.  Mumviyah  (a.d,  660-679)  was  the  son  of  one  of  the 

leading  companions  of  the  Prophet.  He  made  the 
Headship  of  Islam  hereditary,  and  is  regarded  with 
great  hatred  by  the  Shiahs. 

7.  Yazid  (A.D.  679-683),  son  of  Muawiyah.     It  was  in 

conflict  with  Yazid  that  al-Hasan  was  killed  at  the 
battle  of  Karbala. 

1  Ayishah  is  generally  known  as  the  Virgin  and  Abubakr  as  "the 
Father  of  the  Virgin." 

283 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

Now  the  Shiahs  hold  that  the  three  Khalifahs  who 
preceded  Ali  were  mere  usurpers,  and  that  in  reality  Ali 
was  the  first  Khalifah,  al-Hasan  the  second,  and  al-Husain 
the  third.  They  maintain  that  the  Khalifate  was  a  divine 
institution,  that  Ali  was  duly  appointed  by  Muhammad  to 
be  his  successor,  and  some  Shiahs,  going  further  than  this, 
affirm  that :  "  The  Prophet  declared  that  the  Most  High  had 
created  him  and  Ali  and  Fatimah,  and  Hasan  and  Husain 
before  the  creation  of  Adam,  and  when  as  yet  there  was 
neither  heaven  nor  earth,  nor  darkness  nor  light,  nor  sun 
nor  moon,  nor  paradise  nor  hell."  ^ 

In  addition  to  the  three  above-named  Khalifahs  the 
Shiahs  recognise  only  nine  others,  the  last  of  these  being 
Muhammad,  son  of  al-Hasan  al-Askari,  known  as  the  Imam 
al-Mahdi,  who  mysteriously  disappeared  long  centuries  ago, 
but  nevertheless  still  lives  and  will  reappear  as  the  Mahdi 
or  Director,  before  the  end  of  the  world,  in  accordance  with 
the  Prophet's  prediction.  And  here  I  may  remark,  paren- 
thetically, that  this  looking  for  some  one  yet  to  come  in 
order  to  crown,  as  it  were,  the  unfinished  work  of  the 
prophets  of  the  foretime,  is  a  common  feature  of  many, 
perhaps  of  all,  the  great  existing  religions,  and  is,  doubtless, 
a  pathetic  admission  of  disappointment  at  the  disparity 
between  the  alluring  promises  made  by  the  prophets  and 
the  mean  historical  realities;  coupled  with  a  fond  hope 
that  things  will  yet  be  made  right,  and  the  long-suffering 
faithful  receive  their  expected  reward  in  full  measure. 

Of  the  nations  who  profess  Islam,  the  Persians,  here- 
ditary opponents  of  the  Arabs,  are  the  most  devoted  to  the 
Shiah  beliefs  and  traditions.  Amongst  the  Indian  Mussul- 
mans, it  is  said,  that  only  about  five  or  six  millions  belong 
to  the  Shiah  sect. 

The  bloody  events  connected  with  the  violent  deaths  of 
their  first  three  Khalifahs,  Ali,  Hasan,  and  Husain,  are 
annually  recalled  to  mind  by  the  Shiahs,  in  all  Muhammadan 
countries  where  they  happen  to  be  in  sufficient  numbers  to 
claim  the  licence  of  indulging  their  grief  in  public,  the 
highest  place  in  their  sympathy  being  allotted  to  Husain. 

^  The  author  of  HayatxCl-Qutluh,  quoted  by  Mr.  Hughes  in  his  Dictionary 
of  Islam,  Art.  "Shiah." 

284 


THE  MUHARRAM 

It  seems  that  after  Yazid  had  assumed  the  Khalifate, 
secret  and  perhaps  perfidious  overtures  were  made  to  Husain 
by  certain  citizens  of  the  city  of  Kufa,  urging  him  to  put 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  fortunes  of  Islam,  and  promising 
him  armed  support. 

Only  sixty-one  years  had  elapsed. since  the  Hijrah  or 
historic  flight  of  Muhammad  from  Mecca,  and  already — such 
was  the  energy  and  enthusiasm  of  the  early  followers  of  the 
Prophet — the  dominion  of  Islam  extended  over  Arabia, 
Persia,  Syria,  and  Egypt;  so  that  the  temporal  power 
attached  to  the  Khalifate  was  sufficient  to  excite  the 
ambition  even  of  a  saint. 

Against  the  prudent  advice  and  affectionate  entreaties 
of  his  relatives,  Husain  accepted  the  tempting  invitation, 
and  set  out  from  Medina  on  his  journey  with  a  handful  of 
attendants  and  the  women  and  children  of  his  family. 
But  the  conspiracy  came  to  the  knowledge  of  Yazid,  and 
he  forthwith  took  decisive  measures  to  make  rivalry  on  the 
part  of  al-Husain  for  ever  impossible. 

On  reaching  the  boundaries  of  Babylonia,  Husain  was 
met,  on  the  first  day  of  the  month  of  Muharram,  by  a  party 
of  horsemen  under  the  command  of  an  officer  named  Al  Hur, 
who  had  been  sent  to  seize  and  lead  him  captive  into  the 
presence  of  Ubaidullah,  the  Governor  of  Busra.  Al  Hur, 
with  pious  respect  for  the  grandson  of  the  Prophet,  treated 
Husain  with  the  greatest  consideration,  giving  him  the 
option  of  any  road  to  Kufa  which  he  might  care  to  select, 
except  one  leading  back  to  Mecca. 

Husain  chose  his  route  and  journeying  by  night,  became 
sleepy  in  the  saddle  and  nodded  occasionally.  This  physical 
weakness  he  accepted,  with  Oriental  fatalism,  as  prophetic 
of  evil,  remarking :  "  Men  travel  by  night  and  the  destinies 
travel  toward  them  ;  this  I  know  to  be  a  message  of  death." 

On  the  third  day  after  Husain's  meeting  with  Hur, 
another  and  larger  body  of  the  enemy,  some  4000  strong, 
under  the  command  of  Umr  Ibn  ^a'd^  came  up  with  him 
and  demanded  an  explanation  as  to  what  had  brought  him 
there.  The  leader  would  fain  have  dealt  generously  with 
the  son  of  Fatima,  but  by  command  of  Ubaidullah,  the 
Governor  of  Busra,   proceeded   without  delay   to   cut   off 

285 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDJA 

Husain  and  his  little  band  from  all  access  to  the  Euphrates, 
a  strategical  movement  which  placed  the  Prophet's  grand- 
son entirely  at  the  mercy  of  his  enemies. 

Eealising  too  late  the  futility  of  his  adventure,  Husain 
asked  permission  to  return  to  Mecca,  and  Ibn  Sa'd,  influenced 
by  Hur,  communicated  with  the  Governor  of  Busra  on  the 
point;  but  the  latter  peremptorily  insisted  upon  Husain's 
unconditional  surrender. 

Six  days,  from  the  fourth  to  the  ninth  of  Muharram,  had 
been  passed  in  these  negotiations,  while  Husain's  devoted 
little  band  of  only  seventy-two  men  and  the  comparatively 
considerable  forces  of  the  enemy  lay  encamped  over  against 
each  other  on  an  open  plain  named  Karbala,  by  the  banks 
of  the  historic  Euphrates. 

Suspecting  Umar's  loyalty,  Ubaidullah  had  despatched 
to  his  camp  a  fanatical  partisan  of  Yazid's  family  named 
Shamir,  with  peremptory  orders  to  the  commander  of  the 
forces  to  demand  Husain's  immediate  and  unconditional 
surrender,  and  in  the  event  of  a  rejection  of  these  terms  to 
literally  trample  him  and  his  followers  under  foot.  Further, 
Shamir  came  secretly  authorised  to  strike  off  Umar's  head, 
and  himself  take  command  of  the  troops,  should  Umar 
exhibit  any  hesitation  about  dealing  summarily  with  the 
Prophet's  grandson,  the  dangerous  claimant  to  the  Headship 
of  Islam. 

On  the  9th  day  of  Muharram,  Umar  rode  into  Husain's 
camp  and  personally  communicated  to  him  the  final  decision 
of  the  Governor  of  Busra. 

Husain  pleaded  for  time  till  the  next  morning  to  con- 
sider his  answer,  and  this  request  was  apparently  granted. 

With  noble  generosity  Husain  urged  his  companions  to 
return  to  their  homes,  as  he  alone  was  wanted  at  Kufa,  but 
they  one  and  all  refused  to  desert  him  in  his  hour  of  need, 
remarking,  "God  forbid  that  we  should  ever  see  the  day 
wherein  we  survive  you ! " 

The  steadfast  band  of  heroes  made  ready  to  die  like 
men ;  willing  to  exchange  the  troubles  of  this  life  for  the 
peace  of  Paradise  and  the  embraces  of  the  dark-eyed  Houris. 
During  the  night  they  protected  their  rear  with  a  deep 
trench  filled  with  lighted  faggots,  and  awaited  an  attack  at 

286 


^  THE  MUHARRAM 

daybreak.  In  expectation  of  immediate  battle,  their  leader, 
who  had  fought  with  credit  against  the  Christians  during 
the  long  but  fruitless  siege  of  Constantinople  (a.d.  668-675), 
took  up  his  position  on  horseback  with  the  Koran  before 
him,  exclaiming  as  he  faced  his  enemies :  "  O  God,  Thou 
art  my  confidence  in  every  trouble  and  my  hope  in  every 
adversity." 

At  this  critical  moment  in  al-Husain's  fortunes  occurred 
one  of  those  rare  incidents  which,  whether  inspired  by  pure 
magnanimity,  or  by  the  hope  of  an  eternal  reward,  un- 
doubtedly ennoble  humanity,  and  therefore  should  not  be 
forgotten.  It  was  this.  A  small  party  of  thirty  horsemen 
detached  itself  from  the  main  body  of  the  enemy  and 
rapidly  approached  Husain's  entrenched  position.  "  The 
van  of  the  attacking  force  ! "  thought  Husain  and  his  friends. 
No,  it  was  Al  Hur  with  a  few  followers,  who  had  come  over 
to  the  weaker  side,  resolved,  with  devoted  courage  to  share 
inevitable  death  with  the  grandson  of  the  Prophet  and  his 
faithful  little  band.  As  he  left  the  army  of  Umar  to  cast 
in  his  lot  with  Husain,  Hur  (known  to  posterity  as  Hur-i- 
shahid,  Hur  the  Martyr),  fired  with  lofty  disdain,  turned 
round  and  shouted  back  to  his  former  companions,  "  Alas ! 
for  you ! "  But  there  was  no  further  defection  from  the 
enemy's  forces.  No  other  help  for  Husain  was  forth- 
coming. 

Although  naturally  reluctant  to  destroy  the  son  of 
Fatima,  Ibn  Sa'd's  forces  had  to  obey  the  orders  of  their 
commander.  The  fight  began  by  the  implacable  and 
truculent  Shamir  shooting  an  arrow  towards  Husain's 
entrenchment.  Thenceforward  the  conflict  between  the 
two  very  unequal  forces  was  carried  on  in  a  desultory 
manner,  with  at  least  one  truce  far  the  performance  of  the 
prescribed  midday  prayers. 

According  to  the  Shiah  traditions,  at  the  commencement 
of  the  battle  Ali  Akbar,  Husain's  eldest  son,  animated  by  a 
burning  zeal  for  vengeance  and  the  martyr's  crown,  made 
no  less  than  ten  successful  onslaughts  on  the  enemy, 
killing  at  each  charge  at  least  two  or  three  of  his  opponents ; 
but  in  his  eleventh  attack,  exhausted  with  fatigue  and 
thirst,  he  was  surrounded  by  his  foes  and  cut  to  pieces.     In 

287 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

Husain's  camp,  amongst  the  members  of  his  own  family, 
there  was  the  youthful  Kasim,  his  brother  Hasan's  son. 
A  solemn  promise  had  been  made  to  this  youth's  father 
that  he  should  wed  Husain's  daughter,  consequently,  even 
with  inevitable  destruction  before  him,  the  Imam  felt  it  his 
duty  to  unite  them  in  wedlock,  though  the  wailings  for 
gallant  Ali  Akbar's  untimely  end  were  still  in  their  ears. 
After  the  hasty  wedding  Kasim,  a  mere  child,  henceforth 
always  remembered  as  "  the  bridegroom,"  went  forth  to 
combat  the  foes  of  his  family,  and  fell  an  easy  victim  in  the 
unequal  strife.^  Now  Husain,  attended  by  his  brother,  the 
standard-bearer  Abbas,  both  having  donned  their  cerements, 
sallied  forth  and  made  a  furious  attack  on  the  troops  of  Ibn 
Sa'd,  with  the  result  that  Abbas,  fighting  bravely  for  the 
martyr's  reward,  was  mortally  wounded. 

In  this  desultory  fashion,  due,  no  doubt,  to  the  feelings 
of  respect  entertained  by  the  rank  and  file  of  the  enemy's 
forces  for  the  beloved  grandson  of  their  Prophet,  the  battle 
dragged  on  until  Husain  received  a  wound  on  the  head. 
Faint  from  loss  of  blood,  he  dismounted  and  sat  beside  his 
tent  with  his  little  son  Ali  Ashgar  or  Abdallah  in  his  lap. 
In  his  father's  fond  embrace  the  child  was  struck  and  killed 
by  a  random  arrow.^ 

It  was  a  bitter  moment  indeed,  but  al-Husain,  placing 
his  dead  child  upon  the  gi'ound,  exclaimed  with  pious 
resignation :  "  We  come  from  God  and  we  return  to  Him. 
0  God,  give  me  strength  to  bear  these  misfortunes." 

Overcome  with  thirst,  Husain  now  hurried  towards  the 
river,  and  as  he  drank  of  its  refreshing  stream,  a  flying 
arrow  pierced  his  mouth.  Kaising  both  his  bloodstained 
hands  he  lifted  his  troubled  eyes  to  heaven  and  in  sight  of 
the  opposing  forces  poured  out  his  soul  in  prayer. 

At  last,  encouraged  and  goaded  on  by  the  bloodthirsty 
Shimar,  the  troops  closed  upon  Husain,  who,  facing  the 
terrible  odds  against  him,  defended  himself  with  undaunted 
bravery.     In   the   heat   of    raging   battle   Husain's   sister 

^  According  to  other  accounts,  Kasim  was  killed  in  his  uncle's  arms. 
Sir  William  Muir,  The  Caliphate :  lis  Rise,  Decline,  and  Fall,  p.  326. 

2  Sir  William  Muir  includes  Ali  Ashgar  amongst  the  survivors  of 
Karbala.     The  Caliphate,  p.  327. 

288 


tHE   MUHARRAM 

Zainab  threw  herself  recklessly  amongst  the  excited 
combatants,  pleading  for  the  life  of  her  brother :  but  her  love 
availed  not.  Bleeding  from  many  wounds,  Husain  was  at 
length  despatched  by  a  spear-thrust  through  his  body,  and 
as  he  fell,  Shimar  rode  a  troop  of  horsemen  over  his 
prostrate  corpse  again  and  again,  until  the  handsome  form 
of  the  Prophet's  grandson  was  mangled  out  of  recognition 
under  the  hoofs  of  the  horses.  With  cruel  forethought, 
however,  Husain's  head  was  preserved  to  be  carried  aloft  in 
triumph  to  Kufa,  hanging  from  the  point  of  a  spear.  Not  a 
man  of  Husain's  devoted  band  escaped  with  his  life.  The 
women  and  children  of  his  household  were  captured  and 
taken  to  Ubaidullah's  palace  at  Kufa,  having,  according 
to  Shiah  traditions,  been  treated  with  the  greatest 
indignity. 

Husain's  death  occurred  on  the  9th  October  a.d.  680. 

"  A  thrill  of  horror,"  says  Sir  William  Muir,  "  ran 
through  the  crowd  when  the  gory  head  of  the  Prophet's 
grandson  was  cast  at  Ubeidallah's  feet.  Hard  hearts 
were  melted.  As  the  Governor  turned  the  head  roughly 
over  with  his  staff  (though  we  must  be  slow  to  accept 
the  tales  of  heartless  insult  multiplied  by  Shiya  hate), 
an  aged  voice  was  heard  to  cry :  '  Gently !  It  is  the 
Prophet's  grandson.  By  the  Lord !  I  have  seen  those 
very  lips  kissed  by  the  blessed  mouth  of  Mahomet.' "  ^ 

There  cannot  b^  any  doubt  that  the  sufferings  of  Husain 
on  the  field  of  Karbala,  where  so  many  of  his  loved  ones 
died  fighting  for  him,  and  where  he  and  his  entire  family 
with  the  women  and  tender  babes  endured  the  cruel 
agonies  of  thirst — cut  off  by  their  bitter  enemies  from  the 
waters  of  the  Euphrates — were  indeed  terrible  and  affecting 
in  the  extreme,  and  truly,  as  Gibbon  writing  of  this  event 
says,  in  his  own  stately  way :  "  In  a  distant  age  and  climate 
the  tragic  scene  of  the  death  of  Husain  will  awaken  the 
sympathy  of  the  coldest  reader." 

1  Sir  William  Muir,  The  CaliphcUe,  p.  327. 


289 


THE   MJJKARRAM.— continued 

Section  II. — The  Passion  Play  of  Hasan  and  Husain. 

THE  ceremonies  of  the  Muharram  celebrations 
fall  into  two  classes  : 
The  indoor  performance,  if  such  it   can 
be  called,  of  a  long  miracle  play  dealing  in 
minute   detail  with  a  succession  of  painful 
events  and   tragedies  which   culminated   at 
Karbala;  and  of  public  processions  and  open-air  demon- 
strations.   We  may  deal  with  these  separately,  taking  the 
miracle  play  first. 

Wealthy  Shiah  families  set  apart  a  special  building, 
known  as  the  Imamhara  for  the  annual  performance  of  the 
play,  and  this  sometimes  serves  also  as  a  mausoleum  for 
the  proprietor  and  privileged  members  of  the  family. 

Of  the  Imambaras  I  have  visited,  the  one  at  Hugli  in 
Bengal  and  the  Husainabad  at  Lucknow  are  the  largest.  In 
each  the  principal  feature  is  a  spacious  hall,  hung  with 
crystal  chandeliers  and  decorated  with  mirrors  and  other 
glittering  ornaments.  It  is  usual  in  Imambaras  to  have 
on  the  side  towards  Mecca  certain  tdbuts  or  tazias  which 
are  fanciful  representations  of  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs. 
These  are  often  handsome  and  costly  structures  on  which 
the  artistic  skill  of  the  East  has  been  freely  lavished.  At 
night  during  the  annual  celebrations  the  hall  or  theatre 
is  brilliantly  lighted,  and  so  is  the  tahut  itself,  the  whole 
presenting  a  scene  of  rare  and  peculiar  beauty. 

The  great  Imambara  at  Lucknow,  erected  in  a.d.  1784 
by  the  Nawab  Asaf-ul-Daulah,  was  not  many  years  ago,  and 
perhaps  is  even  now,  used  by  the  British  Government  as  an 
arsenal.  It  is  a  magnificent  structure,  with  a  hall  167  feet 
by  52  feet  and  63  feet  high. 

290 


THE  MUHARRAM 

The  Passion  Play. — Of  the  Passion  Play  as  performed 
in  Persia,  the  stronghold  of  Shiahism,  we  have  an  English 
rendering  by  Sir  Lewis  Pelly,  which,  revised  and  supplied 
with  explanatory  notes  by  Mr.  A.  N.  WoUaston,  makes  a 
couple  of  substantial  volumes,  to  which  I  am  indebted  for 
the  quaint  and  significant  details  embodied  in  this  section. 

The  play,  as  presented  to  us  in  Sir  Lewis  Pelly's  work, 
has  many  peculiarities  well  worthy  of  attention. 

In  the  first  place,  the  action  ranges  over  a  period  of 
time  past  and  future  extending  from  the  days  of  Joseph 
and  his  brethren  to  the  final  resurrection  of  the  dead. 
Anachronisms  the  most  outrageous  do  not  daunt  the 
dramatist;  exaggeration  and  hyperbole  reign  rampant. 
Beings  of  all  orders  come  forward  and  speak,  from  the 
Almighty  Himself  with  His  angels  and  jinns,^  down  to  men 
and  women  of  all  gi'ades  and  characters.  Disembodied 
spirits,  as  of  Muhammad,  Fatima,  and  Ali,  appear  and  take 
a  lively  practical  interest  in  the  fate  of  their  descendants, 
while  even  a  talking  lion  is  gravely  introduced  to  enhance 
the  honour  and  glory  of  Husain.  Headless  trunks  speak 
rationally  from  the  throat,  and  heads  severed  from  their 
bodies  hold  long  conversations.     (Vol.  ii.  pp.  60,  61.) 

Other  wonders,  too,  find  a  place  in  the  play,  as  when  the 
whole  of  Ibn  Sa'd's  army  fly  terror-stricken  before  the  great 
Imam  Husain  (ii.  44),  and  when  Husain  himself  is  spirited 
away  from  the  battlefield  of  Karbala  to  distant  India 
merely  to  rescue  Sultan  Ghiyas  from  the  jaws  of  a  lion. 
(Vol.  ii.  pp.  54-65.) 

In  the  crisis  of  his  difficulties,  the  martyr  is,  in  the 
manner  so  familiar  to  the  East,  exposed  to  a  great  temptation. 
The  angel  Futrus  comes  with  his  legions  to  him  and  offers 
to  utterly  destroy  his  enemies;  but  Husain  nobly  replies 
that  after  the  death  of  his  beloved  sons  and  kinsmen  the 
possession  of  the  throne  of  the  entire  world  would  yield 
him  no  pleasure,  and  that  it  were  better  to  die  than  to 
outlive  his  children.     (Vol.  ii.  pp.  49-52.) 

Quite  naturally,  of  course,  some  sensational  conversions 
of  Christians  to  the  Muhammadan  faith  are  brought  into  the 
play.    (Scenes  xxxl,  xxxv.,  and  xxxvi.) 

1  Genii,  both  good  and  eVil. 
-     291 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

A  curious  feature  of  the  drama  we  are  considering  is  the 
frequent  protest  made  by  the  sufferers  against  the  tyranny, 
injustice,  and  malignity  of  "the  Heavens,"  or  of  "the 
Spheres."  It  may  sound  strange,  this  petulant  accusation  of 
the  unfair  and  unfriendly  Heavens;  but  it  is  intelligible 
enough.  ,  The  endurance  of  unmerited  calamities  with 
absolute  patience  being  an  impossibility,  the  human  soul  in 
trouble  must  cry  aloud,  even  if  it  be  in  impotent  complaint. 
But  against  whom  are  its  accusations  to  be  directed  ?  To  lift 
one's  voice  in  fretful  murmuring  against  God,  the  ordainer 
of  all  things,  would  be  too  impious,  too  temerarious,  and  so 
the  outraged  feelings  of  the  helpless  are  relieved  by  plaintive 
impeachments  of  an  impersonal  cruel  Fate,  or  an  equally 
malicious  Heaven,  or  the  silent  treacherous  Stars  in  their 
courses. 

Writing  for  Westerns  it  seems  to  me  that  the  prominence 
given  throughout  the  play  to  the  women  of  Husain's  family, 
and  the  deep  respect  and  unstinted  affection  with  which 
they  are,  at  all  times,  addressed  or  alluded  to,  is  a  feature 
of  the  play  worth  noting,  in  face  of  the  unnecessary  pity 
which  European  and  American  women  usually  express^  for 
the  inmates  of  the  harem. 

Although  the  play  is,  of  course,  not  history,  yet  the 
larger  portion  of  it  is  devoted  to  a  presentment  of  the  main 
historical  events  which  precede  and  follow  the  awful  carnage 
with  which  the  name  of  Karbala  will  for  ever  be  associated. 

After  presenting  in  detail  Shimar's  bloody  triumph 
over  Husain,  the  play  unfolds,  to  the  accompaniment  of 
heart-rending  lamentations,  the  evil  fortunes  of  the  ill- 
starred  women  and  children  of  his  family ;  not,  however, 
omitting  to  include  in  the  plot,  no  doubt  as  a  compliment 
to  the  native  home  of  Shiahism,  the  happy  escape  of 
Shahrbanu,  the  wife  of  the  murdered  Husain,  and  sister  of 
the  Prince  of  Persia,  and  the  later  release  of  her  daughter 
Fatima,  "  the  bride,"  by  the  commander  of  the  Syrian  army, 
through  the  intervention  of  the  same  Persian  prince. 

Judged  by  the  canons  of  Western  dramaturgy,  the  play 
is  really  not  dramatic  or  realistic.  It  is  rather  narrative 
in  form,  the  different  characters  not  so  much  acting  as 
describing  what  they  themselves  had  witnessed,  performed, 

292 


THE  MUHARRAM 

and  experienced,  and  more  particularly  what  they  ftlt. 
With  curious  incongruity  persons  present  in  widely  sepa- 
rated places  are  frequently  made  to  speak  one  immediately 
after  the  other  as  if  they  were  in  the  same  spot. 

The  motive  of  the  play  is  to  work  the  feelings  of  the 
audience  up  to  the  high^t  pitch  of  sympathy  with  the 
martyrs  of  Karbala,  especially  Husain,  the  central  figme  of 
that  memomble  tragedy.  Also  to  make  it  clear  that  the 
great  martyrdom  was  pui-ely  voluntary  and  for  the  salvation 
of  the  faithful  in  the  terrible  day  of  Judgment.^ 

The  first  object  is  attained  by  the  way  in  which  the 
sufferings  of  the  different  martyrs  are  dwelt  upon  over  and 
over  again  throughout  the  play,  with  a  morbid  iteration  of  all 
the  harrowing  details  of  the  gory  tragedy,  followed  by  the 
brutal  treatment  to  which  the  helpless  women  and  children 
were  subsequently  exposed.  Even  before  the  event,  prophetic 
vision  conjures  up  all  the  sad  scenes  of  suffering  which  the 
family  of  the  Prophet  would  have  to  go  through.  Indeed,  the 
way  in  which  every  one  seems  aware  of  the  events  which 
are  about  to  come  to  pass,  is  surprising,  and  borders  on  the 
ridiculous.  Thiret  and  its  horrors  being  only  too  well  known 
to  the  dwellers  in  the  arid  countries  of  Asia,  the  bitter  cry 
for  water  haunts  and  heightens  the  tragedy  of  Karbala. 

To  keep  before  the  minds  of  the  audience  the  volunt<iry 
character  of  Husain's  martyrdom  it  is  insisted  more  than 
once  that,  possessed  as  he  was  of  superhuman  power,  he 
could,  if  he  had  so  desired,'^  have  easily  produced  water 
for  his  thirsty  family  and  followers,  or  routed  his  armed 
assailants  on  that  fatal  10th  day  of  Muharram. 

For  attestation  of  the  efficacy  and  the  triumphant  justi- 
fication of  the  great  sacrifice,  we  have  the  concluding  scene 
of  the  Final  Eesurrection  of  the  Dead,  when  the  right  of 
Husain,  by  virtue  of  his  sufferings,  to  be  the  intercessor  for 
the  faithful  is  conceded  by  Allah  himself. 

To  Muhammad  the  Angel  Gabriel,  the  celestial  messenger, 
says : 

"  Peace  be  unto  thee,  0  Muhammad,  the  elect,  God 
hath  sent  thee  a  message,  saying, '  None  has  suffered  the 

^  The  sacrifice  (albeit  predestined,  vol.  ii.  p.  86)  of  Husain  for  the  benefit 
of  his  people  is  explained  at  vol.  i.  pp.  210,  211. 

293 


^RAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

pain  and  afflictions  which  Husain  has  undergone.  None 
has,  like  him,  been  obedient  to  my  service.  As  he  has 
taken  no  steps  save  in  sincerity  in  all  that  he  has  done, 
thou  must  put  the  Key  of  Paradise  in  his  hand.  The  privi- 
lege of  making  intercession  for  sinners  is  exclusively  his. 
Husain  is,  by  My  peculiar  grace,  the  mediator  for  all.' " 

In  communicating  this  divine  message  to  his  grandson, 
Muhammad  is  made  to  say : 

"  Good  tidings,  0  Husain  !  Act  thou  according  to 
thy  will.  Behold  the  fulfilment  of  God's  promise.  Per- 
mission has  proceeded  from  the  Judge,  the  gracious 
Creator,  that  I  should  give  to  thy  hand  this  Key  of 
intercession.  Go  thou  and  deliver  from  the  flames  every 
one  who  has  in  his  lifetime  shed  but  a  single  tear  for 
thee,  every  one  who  has  in  any  way  helped  thee,  every  one 
who  has  performed  a  pilgrimage  to  thy  shrine,  or  mourned 
for  thee,  and  every  one  who  has  written  tragic  verses 
for  thee.     Bear  each  and  all  with  thee  to  Paradise."  ^ 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  Persian  Miracle  Play  of  Hasan 
and  Husain  does  more  than  merely  describe  the  details  of 
murders,  slaughters,  and  wanton   cruelties;    it  gives   the 
doctrinal  justification  for  the  same  in  the  Shiah  scheme  of 
salvation.     Husain  indeed  expatiates  upon  the  delight  with 
which  he  had  "  for  a  great  space  of  time  "  looked  forward  to 
the  glorious  martyrdom  for  the  sake  of  the  sinners  amongst 
his  people.     He  is  even  urged  by  a  voice  from  the  sepulchre 
of  the  Prophet  Muhammed  to  end  his  miseries  by  getting 
soon  to  Karbala,  and  receives  the  advice  with  joy.     (Vol.  i. 
p.  212.)   It  would  appear,  then,  that  no  futile  mission,  dictated 
by  personal  ambition  to  obtain  the  Khalifate,  guided  Husain's 
steps  from  Medina  towards  Kufa.     Far  from  that,  the  details 
of  the  whole  grim  scene  of  thirst  and  slaughter  to  occur  on 
the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  were  fully  known  to  Imam 
Husain,  and  he  went  forward  with  complete  pre-knowledge 
and  delight  to  "  drink  the  honey  of  martyrdom."     Such,  at 
any  rate  according  to  the  Miracle  Play,  are  the  beliefs  of 
the  Shiahs,  and  though  they  might  not  be  wholly  endorsed 
by  all  members  of  the  sect,  yet  it  is  evident  that  they  must 
be  familiar  and  acceptable  to  the  Shiah  public. 

^  The  Miracle  Play  of  Hasan  and  Husain,  by  Sir  Lewis  Pelly,  vol.  ii. 
pp.  346,  347. 

294 


THE  MUHARRAM 

It  was  apparently  only  for  his  own  followers  that  the 
martyred  Husain  became  a  ransom,  not  for  all  Muhamma- 
dans,^  and  certainly  for  no  individual  outside  the  pale  of 
Islam.  At  first  sight  this  redemption  appears  narrow  in 
spirit  and  restricted  in  application,  but  that  is  nothing  new 
or  peculiar.  According  to  the  accepted  doctrines  of  the 
Christian  Church  the  redemption  .purchased  by  the  blood 
of  Jesus,  is,  after  all,  only  available  for  His  own  professed 
followers ;  its  benefits  do  not  extend  to  any  others,  whether 
they  be  virtuous  or  the  reverse. 

Eeligion,  it  is  needless  to  insist,  is  not  based  on  sober 
historical  events,  though  such  events,  transformed  and 
transfigured  in  the  crucible  of  the  believer's  imagination, 
often  serve  to  give  a  sort  of  actuality  to  the  uncertain 
foundations  upon  which  the  composite  superstructure  of 
dogma  and  ritual  has  been  reared  by  successive  generations 
of  subtle  theologians  and  ambitious  priests.  Europe,  in  its 
long  history,  has  witnessed  with  appreciation  scores  of 
Passion  and  Miracle  Plays  and  Ecclesiastical  Shows,  both 
edifying  and  unedifying ;  based  on  apocryphal  gospels,  and 
dealing  with  the  sacred  mysteries  of  the  Christian  religion, 
such  as  the  Miraculous  Birth,  the  Crucifixion,  and  the 
Descent  into  Hell,^  but  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the 
Passion  Play  of  Hasan  and  Husain  performed,  or  more 
properly  declaimed,  during  the  Muharram  excites  the  fervid 
emotions  of  the  hearers  in  a  way  no  other  miracle  play,  not 
even  the  decennial  performance  at  Ober-Ammergau  has  ever 
done,  eliciting  touching  demonstrations  of  unaffected,  if 
hysterical,  grief  from  large  audiences.  I  have  myself  seen 
in  an  Imambara  in  Bengal  a  crowd  of  women  energetically 
beating  their  almost  bare  bosoms  and  tossing  their  loose 
tresses  forwards  and  backwards  as  they  cried  with  pathetic 
emotion  and  with  one  voice,  "  Ya,  Husain !  Ya,  Husain ! " 
while  the  audience,  melted  to  tears,  sobbed  aloud. 

'  According  to  Muslim  belief,  all  Muhammadans  will  eventuaZly  be 
admitted  to  Paradise.  The  Shiah  belief  set  forth  above  means  a  hastening 
of  this  blissful  reception  into  heaven  of  believers  in  Imam  Husain  through 
the  Saint's  intercession. 

^  William  Hone,  Ancient  Mysteries  described,  1823. 


295 


THE  MUHAEKAM 

— continued 


Section  III. — Open-air  ceremonies. 

^  AVING  explained  the  historical 
basis  of  the  Muharram,  the 
object  kept  in  view  in  its 
celebration,  and  the  character- 
istics of  the  Passion  Play  asso- 
ciated with  it,  I  pass  on  to 
the  more  obtrusive  and  there- 
fore better  known  open  -  air 
ceremonies  of  the  great  annual 
demonstration  in  honour  of 
Imam  Husain's  martyrdom. 

Shortly  before  the  new 
moon  of  the  Muharram  the 
Shiahs  enclose  a  space  which  they  call  the  tabut  khana,  and 
in  this  the  tabut,  a  portable  structure  representing  the  tomb 
of  Husain  or  one  of  his  martyred  followers,  is  constructed. 
As  soon  as  the  new  moon  becomes  visible,  a  spade  is  stuck 
into  the  ground  before  the  enclosure,  and  here,  later  on,  a 
pit  is  dug  in  which  a  fire  is  kept  burning  during  the  ten 
days  of  the  Muharram  celebrations,  apparently  in  memory 
of  the  trench  which  had  been  dug  for  the  protection  of 
Husain  and  his  followers  at  Karbala,  and  filled,  as  the  reader 
will  remember,  with  lighted  faggots  the  evening  previous  to 
the  final  battle. 

The  ten  days  of  the  Muharram  are,  of  course,  days  of 
lamentation,  yet  on  the  seventh  day  there  is  a  procession  to 
commemorate  the  marriage  of  Kasim  and  Fatima.  On  the 
eighth  day  a  number  of  lances,  each  surmounted  by  an  open 
hand,  draped  with  green  cloth — the  standards  in  fact  of 

296 


THE  MUHARRAM 

Husain — are  paraded  about  the  streets.  On  the  ninth  day 
the  tabuts  are  brought  out  and  carried,  with  much  drumming 
and  shouting,  to  some  appointed  centre,  preferably  one  which 
is  associated  with  the  name  of  a  well-known  local  Muslim 
saint,  while  the  concluding  day  witnesses  the  interment  of 
these  tabuts  at  the  local  Karbala. 

The  following  are  brief  accounts  of  these  different  phases 
of  the  Muharram  celebrations  as  I  have  witnessed  them. 


1.  The  Marriage  Procession  on  the  Seventh  Day. 

Wending  its  way  through  the  streets  of  a  city  in 
Northern  India  came  the  procession.  At  the  head  of  it  was 
a  band  of  men  beating  their  chests  with  their  hands,  or,  in 
one  or  two  cases,  with  short  iron  chains,  and  shouting,  "  Ya, 
Husain  !  Ya,  Husain  ! "  the  whole  party  acting  under  the 
direction  of  a  sort  of  manager  or  conductor.  Then  followed 
two  led  horses  adorned  with  rich  trappings  and  flowers. 
Both  animals  freely  perfumed  with  rose-water  till  dripping 
wet,  were  doubtless  representatives  of  the  horses  which 
centuries  ago  had  the  honour  of  carrying  ill-starred  Kasim 
and  his  luckless  bride.  Behind  the  horses  were  drummers 
beating  their  drums  in  a  frantic  way,  meant,  I  presume,  to 
be  expressive  of  happy  exultation.  The  rest  of  the  pro- 
cession, curving  about  like  a  mighty  serpent  through  the 
narrow  lanes  of  the  city  for  at  least  a  mile,  was  made  up  of 
camels  bearing  wedding  presents,  horses  and  elephants  mov- 
ing in  single  file,  their  riders  carrying  black  or  green  banners 
in  their  hands.  In  its  way  the  show  was  imposing,  and  as 
for  spectators  there  was  no  lack  of  them,  the  streets  being 
so  crowded  that  pedestrians  could  hardly  make  headway. 
Eager  onlookers  crowded  the  windows,  balconies,  and  roofs 
of  the  houses  along  the  route.  Here  and  there  some  poor 
attempts  at  decoration  might  be  seen.  A  verandah  or  shop 
would  perhaps  be  gay  with  hanging  lamps  and  suspended 
spheres  of  variously  coloured  glass,  while  framed  texts  from 
the  Koran  were  also  displayed  for  the  edification  of  the  few 
who  could  read  Arabic.  At  several  places  on  the  way 
raised  booths  were  in  evidence,  adorned  with  leaves  and 
plantain  trees.     At  these  places  water  sweetened  with  sugar 

297 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

was  freely  distributed,  though  the  manner  of  serving  it  out 
to  the  thirsty  souls  who  swarmed  around  was  certainly  open 
to  improvement.  At  one  spot  I  noticed  that  a  woman  had 
erected  a  booth  of  lier  own,  where  she  presided  in  person, 
distributing  the  sherbet  with  her  own  fair  hands.  She  was, 
I  ascertained,  a  woman  of  the  town,  and  had  vowed  to 
abstain  for  the  entire  ten  days  of  the  Muharram  from  plying 
her  usual  trade !     Such  is  the  power  of  religion  ! 

Just  outside  the  city,  near  the  pleasant  bank  of  a  flowing 
canal,  four  men  were  chanting  the  memorable  story  of  the 
great  martyrdom  to  an  attentive  audience,  who  rewarded 
them  with  tokens  of  their  appreciation  in  the  shape  of 
copper  coins.  I  counted  just  twenty-four  pice  lying  on  the 
sheet  that  had  been  spread  on  the  ground  to  receive  these 
contributions.  Two  men  stood  at  one  end  of  the  sheet 
and  two  at  the  other  end,  singing  alternately  in  a  very 
pleasing  style,  under  the  spreading  branches  of  a  large 
fig  tree. 

On  the  whole,  the  wedding  procession  of  the  unfortunate 
Kasim  and  Fatima  was  impressive  enough,  but  necessarily 
bore  not  the  slightest  resemblance  to  the  hurried  nuptials 
of  those  young  people  on  the  fatal  day  of  Karbala  thirteen 
centuries  ago ;  if,  indeed,  such  nuptials  ever  did  take  place, 
seeing  that  Kasim  was  at  the  time,  according  to  Sir  William 
Muir,  only  ten  years  of  age. 


2.  Tabuts  or  Tazias. 

For  the  maintenance  of  order  in  the  streets,  the  police, 
having  ascertained  the  localities  where  the  several  tazias  of 
the  year  have  been  built,  prescribe  the  precise  route  which 
each  one  must  follow  in  order  to  reach  the  appointed  meet- 
ing-place. On  these  occasions  the  resources  of  the  guardians 
of  the  public  peace  are,  in  the  large  cities,  often  taxed  to 
the  utmost,  for  the  spirit  of  fanaticism  is  in  the  air,  and  the 
hostility  of  the  rival  sects  of  the  Sunnis  and  Shiahs,  in- 
flamed to  the  highest  degree,  often  leads  to  serious  trouble. 
Muslims  and  Hindus  also  occasionally  come  into  collision  at 
Muharram  time ;  and  even  between  the  different  bands  of 
Shiahs  affrays  sometimes  take  place  owing  to  the  eagerness 

298 


THE  MUHARRAM 

of  each  party  to  be  early  at  the  meeting-place,  as  there  is 
merit  to  be  gained  from  precedence  in  this  respect.  I  have 
myself  witnessed  much  disorder  in  Calcutta  during  the 
Muharram. 

Leaving  generalities,  however,  I  pass  on  to  the  details 
connected  with  a  particular  gathering  of  tahuts  in  Lahore 
at  which  I  was  present. 

A  few  shops  were  lighted  up  as  I  walked  down  the 
street,  at  the  end  of  which  all  the  tazias  were  to  be  arranged. 
Near  this  appointed  meeting-place  a  temporary  bazaar  had 
come  into  existence.  One  enterprising  fellow  had  erected  a 
canopy  over  his  collection  of  tempting  wares  and  curious 
toys,  and  had  suspended  from  a  bamboo  frame  a  monster 
80 -candle-power  German  kerosine  lamp  to  illuminate  the 
little  show. 

At  short  intervals  along  both  sides  of  the  street  itinerant 
vendors  of  sweets,  each  man  provided  with  a  flaring  oil- 
lamp,  were  squatting  near  their  baskets  or  flat  trays,  crying 
their  wares  in  loud  strident  tones,  and  the  passers-by  were 
buying  the  pretty  coloured  sweet-stuffs  which,  dyed  pink 
with  cochineal,  were  no  doubt  very  palatable  to  the  Oriental 
taste. 

One  by  one  the  tazias  or  tahuts,  illuminated  by  flaring 
torches,  accompanied  by  deafening  tom-toms,  and  attended 
by  their  own  proprietors  and  supporters,  arrived  from  the 
different  quarters  of  the  town,  escorted  by  constables,  and 
were  arranged  under  police  supervision  on  the  sides  of  the 
street.  This  marshalling  of  the  tazias  is  a  moment  of 
intense  feeling  and  keen  rivalry.  Whose  tazia  is  the  best, 
the  biggest,  the  most  elaborate,  the  most  costly  ?  these  are 
the  questions  that  occupy  the  minds  of  all  the  participators 
in  the  show,  and  each  year  the  Muharram  brings  its 
triumphs  and  its  disappointments  to  some  or  other  of  the 
tazia  builders  and  their  friends. 

Amongst  the  specimens  I  saw  there  were  many  of  con- 
siderable size,  others  quite  diminutive ;  but  all  bright  and 
glittering  with  tinsel,  mica,  and  coloured  paper ;  some  were 
quaint,  some  pretty,  and  some  decidedly  grotesque.  The 
underlying  idea  being  that  the  tazias  should,  in  one  way  or 
another,  represent  the  tomb  of  Imam  Husain,  or  of  the  other 

299 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

martyrs  of  Karbala,  the  designs  were  of  course  various ;  but 
an  inspection  of  them  made  it  clear  that  the  designers  had 
allowed  their  imaginations  to  run  riot  in  a  truly  Indian 
fashion.  One  of  these  tazias  might  be  merely  a  tower  of  four 
or  five  storeys  built  on  a  light  bamboo  framework.  Another 
more  elaborate  and  bizarre  in  form  would  have  the  appear- 
ance of  a  strange  composite  being,  with  a  woman's  face  and 
the  body  of  a  peacock,  bearing  a  house  on  its  back.  Some 
tazias  were  supported  upon  winged  horses  with  long  ostrich- 
like necks,  surmounted  with  human  faces  of  feminine  type. 
One  was  borne  on  the  head  of  a  winged  angel,  who,  by  means 
of  a  simple  contrivance  manipulated  from  behind,  was  made 
to  beat  his  breast  in  a  rather  ridiculous  fashion.  No  doubt 
this  huge  mechanical  toy  brought  forcibly,  perhaps  touchingly, 
to  the  minds  of  Shiah  spectators  that  even  the  denizens 
of  other  w^orlds  mourned  the  martyrdom  of  their  Imam. 

While  the  tazias  stood  in  their  appointed  places  on  the 
roadside,  devout  women  were  fanning  them  with  palm 
leaves  and  horse-hair  chauris  (fly-flappers),  and  even  with 
their  own  chaddars  (veils).  Some  were  Hindu  women, 
probably  unfortunate  mothers,  who  thus  paid  respect  to 
these  effigies  of  the  martyrs'  tombs,  in  the  fond  hope  that 
Imam  Husain  would  graciously  extend  his  protection  to 
their  surviving  children  and  grant  them  long  life.  As  a 
rule,  the  women  who  thus  dedicate  themselves  to  the  service 
of  the  tazias  do  not  sit  down  at  all  from  the  time  the  tazias 
are  brought  out  from  the  tabut  khanas  till  they  are  finally 
disposed  of  at  the  local  Karbala,  a  period  which  might  well 
extend  to  twenty-four  hours.  In  one  instance  I  noticed  a 
woman  pinning  on  to  a  tazias  with  her  own  hands  a  paper 
on  which  her  arzi  (petition)  to  the  martyr  was  written,  and 
it  need  not  be  doubted  that  she  did  so  in  trembling  hope  of 
a  favourable  response.  For  the  enjoyment  of  these  special 
privileges  the  devotees  have,  in  all  probability,  to  make  a 
contribution  in  money  to  the  tazia  building  fund. 

From  time  to  time  some  persons,  for  the  most  part 
women  with  babies  in  their  arms,  approached  the  tazias, 
and  made  trifling  offerings  of  flowers,  sweetmeats,  and  money, 
which  gifts  were  formally  accepted  by  the  attendants,  and 
some  trifling  return,  generally  a  garland  of  small  flowers, 

300 


Photo  hy  IF.  Bull 


A   TAZIA   BELONGING  TO  A  GUILD  OF   BUTCHERS 


To  fact  fazt  300 


THE   MUHARRAM 

given  in  exchange  by  way  of  acknowledgment  to  the  pious 
and  now  happy  oblationer,  who,  beaming  with  satisfaction 
and  hope,  would  place  it  without  delay  about  her  infant's 
neck. 

Many  children  were  to  be  seen  in  the  crowd  wearing 
peculiar  caps,  and  with  tiny  bells  suspended  round  their 
waists.  These  little  ones  had  been  dedicated  as  it  were 
to  the  Imam  Husain  at  birth,  or  at  some  critical  period 
of  sickness  or  danger. 

So  there  before  my  eyes  were  exhibited  in  action  those 
simple  and  touching  sentiments  which  lie  at  the  root  of 
religion — solicitude  for  loved  ones,  and  a  trustful  appeal 
for  help  to  any  unseen  spiritual  power  that  might  possibly 
be  won  over  by  gifts  or  flattering  attentions  to  hear  and 
answer  prayers.  Woman's  love,  as  always,  was  playing  a 
leading  part  in  the  religious  drama  there  unfolded,  and,  as  > 
always,  man  was  reaping,  in  mundane  currency  and  worldly 
goods,  the  harvest  which  sprang  from  the  soil  of  her  amiable  _ 
and  inexhaustible  superstitions.  My  sympathies  as  a  spec- 
tator were  all  with  the  dear  women  and  their  over-faith.  y 

Not  far  from  the  spot  where  the  tazias  had  been  placed 
two  or  three  toy  shops  attracted  attention.  I  noticed 
amongst  the  articles  displayed  in  them,  pictures  of  Jesus 
and  the  Virgin,  but  I  satisfied  myself  that  no  images  of 
the  Hindu  gods  were  for  sale  on  this  occasion.  I  presume 
their  presence  might  have  led  to  trouble. 

However,  tazias  or  no  tazias,  the  everyday  life  of  the 
neighbourhood  was  by  no  means  seriously  interrupted. 
Near  by,  just  on  the  roadside,  but  in  his  own  verandah, 
a  charcoal  vendor,  clad  in  a  loin-cloth,  was  lying  face  down- 
wards on  a  low  charyoy  (a  string-bottomed  bed),  and  another 
man,  supporting  himself  with  a  long  stick,  was  walking 
about  upon  his  prostrate  body.  It  was  not  a  case  for  police 
interference — no  brutal  assault  was  being  committed.  The 
charcoal  merchant  was  merely  having  himself  massaged 
after  his  day's  work — perhaps  he  was  suffering  from  lumbago 
— and  for  all  he  cared  the  whole  world  might  look  on  while 
his  ailment  was  being  attended  to  in  this,  no  doubt,  efficient 
if  rather  primitive  fashion. 

At  a  little  distance,  in  the  roadway,  some  pious  persons 
301 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

had  erected  a  stall  where  marsiyas  or  elegies  were  being 
read  in  Urdu  by  a  young  man  as  I  passed  along.  It  was 
a  small  temporary  structure  made  up  of  low  wooden  tables 
about  a  foot  high,  over  which  daris  (cotton  carpets)  had 
been  spread.  The  stall  had  no  roof  or  covering,  the  sides 
were  made  of  paper,  and  the  chief  feature  of  the  faqade  was 
three  moresque  arches. 

The  stall  was  lighted  with  three  kerosine  lamps,  and 
ornamented  with  two  or  three  vases  and  a  pot  of  artificial 
paper-flowers  of  the  rudest  possible  manufacture.  A  few 
women  stood  and  listened  respectfully  as  the  young  minister 
intoned  the  marsiyas,  but  the  words,  though  spoken  in  what 
is  officially  known  in  the  Punjab  as  "  the  vernacular,"  were 
unintelligible  to  the  country-folk,  who,  having  no  inducement 
to  linger  about,  passed  on  and  went  their  way. 

As  I  was  about  to  leave  the  bazaar,  a  band  of  purliyds 
(men  from  the  eastern  districts  of  the  United  Provinces) 
arrived  with  a  burst  of  tom-toming.  Whirling  rapidly  with 
great  skill  long  slender  poles  with  lighted  torches  at  their 
extremities,  they  traced  curious  and  effective  fire-figures  in 
the  air,  while  others  showed  off  their  skill  in  fencing,  to 
the  great  admiration  of  the  assembled  crowds.  This  exhi- 
bition seemed  to  be  the  final  event  of  the  night's  ceremonies, 
for  almost  immediately  after  their  performance  the  streets 
began  emptying  rapidly. 

3.  The  Duldul  Procession. 

Duldul  is  the  name  of  the  Prophet's  mule  which  he  gave 
to  Ali,  and  the  so-called  Duldul  procession  takes  place  in 
the  forenoon  of  the  last  day  of  the  Muharram  celebrations. 

To  see  the  procession  I,  in  company  with  a  friend, 
entered  the  city  of  Lahore  by  the  Delhi  gate,  and  passing 
by  the  mosque  of  Wazir  Khan,  near  which  a  number  of  stalls 
had  been  set  up  by  fruiterers  and  others,  we  took  up  the 
best  position  we  could  secure  and  waited,  and  while  we  did 
80  the  sun  beat  down  upon  us  with  uncomfortable  warmth, 
although  it  was  only  about  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
As  we  stood  in  the  sweltry  sunshine,  we  had  time  to  take 
note  of  our  surroundings. 

302 


THE  MUHARRAM 

The  street  was  crowded.  At  some  distance  to  the  right 
the  minarets  of  the  mosque  of  Wazir  Khan  made  con- 
spicuous objects  against  the  sky.  On  the  left  the  view 
was  closed  by  the  three  gilded  domes  of  the  Sonari  Masjid. 
Just  opposite,  with  one  side  on  the  narrow  lane  through 
which  we  had  found  our  way,  was  a  picturesque  dwelling- 
house  three  storeys  high.  On  the  first  floor,  from  a  very 
low  and  curiously  carved  window,  three  or  four  women  were 
watching  the  street,  one  a  particularly  good-looking  one, 
with  a  large  gold  nose  ring,  and  many  silver  ornaments. 
On  the  floor  above  was  a  quaintly  carved  balcony,  flanked 
on  either  side  by  windows  surmounted  by  half  domes  of 
the  familiar  Hindu  type.  A  long  balcony  projecting  well 
over  the  street  gave  character  to  the  third  storey,  and  was 
full  of  people.  The  roof  itself  afforded  good  accommodation 
for  many  spectators.  The  houses  along  the  side  of  the 
street  were  a  repetition,  with  many  variations,  of  the 
picturesque  residence  just  opposite  us,  and  led  the  eye 
along  interesting  specimens  of  Indian  domestic  architec- 
ture to  end  in  the  glittering  domes  of  the  golden  mosque. 
Across  the  road,  just  in  advance  of  the  spot  where  we  had 
taken  our  stand,  some  pious  Muslims  had  stretched  a 
canopy  of  carpets  from  one  side  to  the  other,  spanning 
the  entire  width  of  the  street,  reaching  from  housetop 
to  housetop,  high  enough  to  allow  the  loftiest  flagpole  to 
pass  beneath  without  hindrance.  The  spectators  were 
orderly,  quiet,  and  sober.  As  we  waited  in  expectation 
with  umbrellas  over  our  heads  to  protect  us  from  the 
sun,  a  man  came  up  and  very  politely  asked  if  we  would 
kindly  put  our  umbrellas  down  as  the  7'dni  in  the  closed 
carriage  behind  us  could  not  see  what  was  going  on,  and 
would  be  grievously  disappointed  if  she  failed  to  witness 
the  procession,  as  it  was  only  on  rare  occasions  that  ladies 
of  her  rank  ventured  out.  Of  course  my  umbrella  collapsed 
at  once,  and  one  look  behind  afforded  me  a  glimpse  of  the 
presumably  beautiful  princess  as  she  peered  through  the 
Venetian  blinds  of  her  carriage  (a  pdlki  gdri)  to  get  a 
view  of  the  throngs  which  filled  the  streets. 

Amongst  those  waiting   for   the    Duldul   I   noticed   a 
woman  in  dainty  white  garments  carrying  above  her  head 

303 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

a  parasol  of  silver  paper  smothered  under  a  profusion  of 
real  flowers  which  hung  in  threads  from  the  centre.  She 
was  so  eager  to  meet  the  procession  that  she  pressed  for- 
wards towards  it,  and  a  minute  later  I  saw  her  a  little  way- 
down  the  road  sprinkling  rose-water  on  the  advancing 
mourners  from  an  elegant  spray  bottle  which  she  carried  in 
her  hand.     This  was  doubtless  an  act  of  piety. 

Heading  the  procession  which  had  at  last  arrived,  came 
a  number  of  Muhammadan  gentlemen  of  good  position,  some 
of  whom  were  well  known  to  me.  After  them  came  several 
urchins  carrying  little  paper  parasols  ornamented  with 
fringes  composed  of  strings  of  flowers  and  of  raisins,  which 
latter,  as  might  have  been  expected,  attracted  flies  in  their 
myriads.  Next  came  a  batch  of  small  boys  beating  their 
chests  and  crying  in  plaintive  tones,  "  Husain !  Husain ! 
Husain !  Husain ! "  as  a  refrain  to  words  chanted  by  adult 
voices.  It  was  interesting  to  note  the  evident  sincerity 
with  which  many  of  these  little  folk  entered  into  the  spirit 
of  the  occasion,  and  how  they  literally  ill-treated  themselves, 
while  others  again  made  a  mere  pretence  of  beating  their 
breasts.  Then  came  four  or  five  men  bearing  poles  sur- 
mounted by  big  flags  of  black  and  green,  and  in  one  case  of 
red  material.  Behind  these  banners  marched  a  troupe  of  big 
boys,  some  of  whom  were  quite  fanatical  in  the  earnestness 
with  which  they  thumped  their  breasts  with  their  hands, 
and,  in  a  couple  of  instances,  with  small  iron  chains  laid  on 
with  right  goodwill.  Following  these  bigger  boys  came  a 
party  of  stalwarts  stripped  to  the  waist,  many  of  them  as 
fine  specimens  of  manhood  as  one  could  wish  to  see.  These 
adults  were  without  doubt  all  thoroughly  in  earnest,  as  in 
deep,  quick,  jerky  tones  they  cried  Hasan — Husain  !  Hasan 
— Husain !  Hasan — Husain !  and  banged  their  bare  chests 
with  an  energy  that  was  positively  distressing.  The  reader 
does  not  need  to  be  reminded  that  the  two  brothers  whose 
names  were  thus  associated  had  both  met  violent  deaths, 
though  under  quite  dissimilar  circumstances.  The  next 
place  in  the  procession  was  taken  by  the  chanters,  followed 
by  a  led  horse,  which  had  not  been  ridden  for  the  whole  of 
the  previous  year,  and  would  probably  not  be  ever  used 
again,  its  rich  caparison  disfigured  with  irregular  red  spots 

304 


THE  MUHARRAM 

in  imitation  of  blood,  while  many  feathered  arrows  stuck  in 
the  trappings  bore  unmistakable  witness  to  the  terrible 
battle  in  which  it  had  borne  its  gallant  master.  A  profusion 
of  flowers  almost  smothered  the  animal,  and  on  one  side  (the 
left  side)  hung  a  fine  large  serviceable  shield  with  brass 
bosses. 

Immediately  behind  the  horse  came  the  police  guard, 
forming  a  cordon  about  the  animal  and  its  attendants. 
There  were  women  also  in  the  procession  slapping  their 
breasts  in  lamentation  for  Husain's  martyrdom,  but  I  am 
not  quite  sure  whether  they  came  immediately  before  or 
after  the  horse.     The  latter  I  think. 

Behind  the  force  of  constables,  all  of  them  on  foot, 
rode  the  embodiment,  for  the  nonce,  of  the  British  raj,  a 
solitary  Englishman  with  a  resolute  but  bored  expression 
on  his  face — the  Assistant  Superintendent  of  Police. 

4.  Karbala. 

At  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  of  the  Duldul 
procession,  I  visited  the  local  Karbala,  a  large  open  space 
near  gieen  juar  fields. 

The  afternoon  was  hot,  but  the  sun  was  somewhat 
obscured  by  clouds,  and  a  breeze  was  blowing  which,  at 
times,  raised  a  great  deal  of  dust.  Many  tazias  were  on 
the  ground,  amongst  them  a  few  elegant  structures  made 
of  coloured  paper  and  gold  and  silver  tinsel,  surmounted 
by  Eastern  domes  and  towers. 

But  amidst  this  collection  of  "  tombs  "  I  was  surprised  to 
come  upon  what  was  virtually  a  fair  with  the  usual  merry- 
go-rounds,  bustling  gi-oups  of  people — mostly  women  and 
children — and  itinerant  vendors  of  sweetmeats.  Under 
awnings  the  savory  Kabdbs  were  being  cooked  and  sold  to 
appreciative  customers. 

Occasionally  there  was  a  deal  of  rushing  about  amongst 
the  men,  as  something  that  promised  to  lead  to  a  fight 
occurred  anywhere.  The  native  police  seemed  to  be  having 
a  lively  time  of  it  to  keep  the  peace  and  ensure  order.  The 
women,  I  must  say,  took  everything  very  placidly,  and  did 
not  put  themselves  out.  I  wandered  about  waiting  for  the 
U  30s  • 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

entombment  of  the  tazias.  At  one  end  of  the  field,  a 
number  of  huge  graves  were  being  dug,  and  in  the  further- 
most one  I  saw  a  tazia  laid  out.  It  was,  however,  too  long 
for  the  excavation,  and  had  to  be  cut  shorter.  All  the 
pieces  were  put  in,  and  then  the  pretty  but  flimsy  structure 
was  ruthlessly  smashed  down  by  two  or  three  boys  who  were 
standing  in  the  excavation.  Bihishtis  (water-carriers)  with 
full  leather  bags  were  in  attendance,  and  I  noticed  that  some 
women  who  came  on  the  scene  handed  pice  to  them — a 
meritorious  contribution,  no  doubt,  towards  the  good  work. 
The  bihishtis  emptied  their  mashks  on  the  fragments  of  the 
pretty  bamboo  and  paper  tazia  as  it  lay  prostrate  in  the 
trench,  after  which  the  men  with  their  spades  began  to 
cover  the  debris  over  with  earth.  Several  women,  with 
touching  piety,  busied  themselves  throwing  handfuls  of  earth 
into  the  grave,  assisting  in  this  way  the  obsequies  of  that 
which  an  hour  before  had  been  the  object  of  their  pride  and 
admiration. 

Why  the  tazias,  which  are  supposed  to  represent  the 
tombs  of  the  martyrs,  should  themselves  be  buried,  seems, 
at  first  sight,  rather  strange ;  but  I  suppose  it  is  simply  to 
put  them  away  decorously  as  having  duly  served  their 
purpose;  so  that  the  new  year  might  bring  its  own  fresh 
supply  to  do  honour  to  the  great  occasion.  And,  after  all, 
most  of  them  were  very  fragile  and  of  trifling  value.  Such 
of  them  as  were  of  a  better  sort  received  different  treatment ; 
for  even  in  affairs  of  religion,  economic  considerations  are 
rarely,  if  ever,  forgotten.  A  close  observer  might  easily 
notice  here  and  there  a  substantial  tazia  of  more  solid  and 
expensive  construction  being  hastily  covered  up  with  white 
sheets  and  carried  off  quite  unobtrusively  without  any  noise 
or  fuss.  These  better  built  and  more  costly  tazias  would  be 
taken  through  quiet  lanes  back  to  the  tabut  khana  whence 
they  had  been  brought  to  Karbala,  and  would  appear  again 
in  all  their  glory  at  the  next  and,  may  be,  at  many  subse- 
quent Muharrams. 


306 


THE   UVUAURAM— continued 
Sectiox  IV. — A  tale  of  Mnbarram  rivalries. 

AS  a  pendant  to  the  foregoing  description 
of  the  celebration  of  the  Muharram,  I  give 
the  following  characteristic  story,  which 
was  told  me  by  an  old  Muhammadan  of 
the  Suni  sect,  and  which  I  now  reproduce 
as  if  narrated  in  his  own  words : — 
"  Years  ago  I  lived  for  some  months  in  a  large  military 
cantonment  occupied  by  both  European  and  native  troops 
— infantry,  cavalry,  and  artillery.  I  had  gone  there  on 
account  of  the  wedding  of  my  sister,  and  was  easily 
induced  to  spend  some  time  with  her  husband's  family, 
as  the  air  and  water  of  the  place  were  good,  and  the  life 
in  a  military  station  was  new  and  attractive  to  me. 

"  The  General  Sahib  in  this  station  was  a  great  hahadur 
(swell),  with  lots  of  money,  and  he  spent  it  freely.  He  was 
a  really  brave  man  too,  and  his  breast  was  covered  with 
medals.  What  with  his  bravery  and  his  liberality,  the 
sepoys  all  loved  him  as  if  he  were  their  father. 

"  Now  the  general  was  as  much  devoted  to  love  as  to  war, 
and  had  a  number  of  wives,  amongst  others  a  Mussulmani 
of  the  Shiah  persuasion.  She  was  a  pretty  woman,  and 
had  great  influence  with  the  general,  who  humoured  her 
in  whatever  she  wanted.  Jewels  and  clothes  she  had  in 
abundance,  but  her  great  ambition  was  to  bring  out  the 
largest  and  most  magnificent  tasia  at  the  time  of  the 
Muharram.  Of  course,  all  well-instructed  Mussulmans 
know  that  it  is  not  proper  to  make  tazias,  and  still  worse 
to  carry  them  about  with  drums  and  shouting  at  such  a 
solemn  time  of  mourning  as  the  Muharram.  But  the 
foolish  Shiahs  spend  their  money  in  this  improper  fashion 

307  • 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

every  year,  and  think  they  are  performing  a  religious  act 
when  they  are  doing  the  very  reverse.  The  general  sahib's 
hegam,  was  one  of  these,  and  the  chief  butcher  of  the 
station,  a  very  wealthy  man,  was  another,  and  they  were 
great  rivals  in  the  matter.  People  said  that  they  had 
once  been  more  than  friends,  hence  their  senseless  rivalry ; 
but,  in  truth,  I  knew  nothing  about  this  matter. 

"  Every  year  the  general  would  have  a  magnificent  tazia 
made  for  the  hegam,  and  as  soon  as  one  tazia  had  been 
left  at  Karbala,  the  work  of  constructing  another,  and  a 
better  one,  for  the  next  year's  Muharram  was  taken  in 
hand.  Throughout  the  twelve  months  spies  from  either 
side  were  at  work,  trying  to  find  out  what  the  other  party 
was  about,  and  what  the  details  of  the  form  and  dimensions 
of  the  new  tazias  might  be.  It  was  a  grand  piece  of 
cunning,  skill,  and  rich  material,  this  annual  tazia  of  the 
hegam's,  but  there  was  invariably  a  worthy  rival  in  the  field, 
constructed  at  the  expense  of  the  chief  butcher  of  the  city. 

"  I  have,  as  becomes  a  strict  Suni,  always  abstained  from 
taking  any  part  in  the  objectionable  processions  of  the 
tazias ;  but  on  this  occasion,  induced  by  the  report  of  the 
rivalry  of  the  begam  and  the  butcher,  I  went  out  to  see 
their  tazias,  not  without  a  hope  —  for  I  was  young  and 
strong  —  that  there  might  be  some  marpU  (fighting) 
between  the  rival  parties,  as  does  sometimes  occur,  not- 
withstanding the  presence  of  the  police. 

"In  the  evening  of  the  appointed  day  the  tazias  were 
brought  out,  with  a  tremendous  shouting  and  the  deafening 
beating  of  drums.  I  never  heard  a  greater  uproar  in  my 
life.  The  noise  and  the  excitement  of  the  crowd  astonished 
me.  The  hegam's  tazia,  headed  and  followed  by  police- 
men, was  carried  down  one  street,  and  the  chief  butcher's, 
similarly  attended,  was  brought  down  another  street.  They 
gradually  approached  each  other,  and  were  finally  deposited 
at  a  distance  apart  of  about  one  hundred  cubits  in  the 
main  street  of  the  Sudder  Bazaar,  not  far  from  the  Dargdh 
of  one  Sheikh  Nanak  Baksh. 

"  A  great  many  other  tazias,  built  by  influential  people 
in  the  town,  were  also  brought  to  the  bazaar.  None  of 
them,  however,  could  be  compared  with  those  of  the  hegam 

308 


THE  MUHARRAM 

and  the  butcher.    Multitudes  of  people  came  crowding  about 
these  two,  admiring  them  and  discussing  their  respective  merits, 

"Whatever  might  be  the  opinions  of  the  spectators 
respecting  the  comparative  beauty  and  costliness  of  these 
two  principal  structures,  this  at  any  rate  was  evident  to 
all  interested  in  the  matter  or  not,  that  the  hegam's  tazia 
towered  some  six  or  eight  feet  above  its  rival,  and  the 
hegam's  friends  rejoiced  accordingly.  As  the  night  went 
on,  the  low-caste  people,  who  make  a  fair  of  this  solemn 
occasion,  came  out  in  hundreds  with  their  huge  poles 
lighted  at  both  ends,  and  wheeled  them  round  about,  and 
above  their  heads  most  skilfully,  making  great  circles  of  fire 
in  the  air.  In  their  competition  amongst  themselves,  under 
the  stimulus  of  strong  drink,  these  low-caste  fellows,  churas 
and  others — got  up  many  a  disturbance,  which  was  most 
disgraceful  and  annoying  on  an  occasion  which  should  have 
been  observed  with  the  strictest  solemnity  and  mourning. 

"  The  next  morning  all  the  tazias  were  drawn  up  in  a 
great  procession  to  proceed  to  Karbala,  The  hegam's  led  the 
way,  on  the  shoulders  of  not  less  than  twenty-four  selected 
men,  the  attendants  in  their  pride  throwing  out,  occasionally, 
various  jeering  allusions  to  the  butcher's  tazia  just  behind, 
which  taunts  were  received  in  anything  but  an  amiable  spirit. 
When  all  had  assembled  at  Karbala  and  the  tazias  had  been 
placed  once  more  on  the  ground,  the  astonishment  of  the 
onlookers  knew  no  bounds  on  discovering,  what  was  no 
difficult  matter  to  do,  for  it  was  obvious  enough,  that  the 
chief  butcher's  tazia  was  yards  taller  than  the  hegam's ! 

" '  Ya  Husain !  Ya  Husain ! '  shouted  the  butcher's  friends 
like  men  demented,  beating  their  breasts  frantically  with 
their  open  palms  till  they  resounded  again. 

"'Look  at  the  miracle,'  cried  one  man,  and  a  great 
murmur  went  through  the  crowd.  The  hegam's  people 
were  overawed  and  stood  in  mute  wonderment  at  the 
miraculous  victory  of  their  rivals,  who  rent  the  air  with 
their  shouts.  There  was  no  one  in  that  crowd  who  felt 
the  defeat  more  keenly  than  did  the  architect  of  the  hegam's 
tazia,  and,  practical  man  that  he  was,  he  sneaked  round 
and,  unobserved,  approached  the  now  taller  tazia  quite 
closely.     His  quick  eye  detected   that  it  had   been  built 

309" 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

like  a  telescope,  so^that  one  portion  fitted  into  another, 
and  he  concluded  rightly  that  it  had  been  made  to  grow  on 
the  way  to  Karbala.  He  returned  to  his  party  and  told 
them  what  he  had  found  out.  Hundreds  pressed  forward, 
denouncing  the  trick,  and  determined  to  expose  it.  The 
consequence  was  a  free  fight,  in  which  every  one  took  part, 
and  both  the  big  tazias  were  torn  to  pieces.  All  over  the 
ground  quantities  of  silver  paper  and  gold  paper,  coloured 
and  shiny  paper  of  all  kinds,  mica  and  glass,  bamboos  and 
canes,  were  strewn  about,  and  many  heads  were  broken. 

"  This  was  the  chief  butcher's  first  and  last  triumph 
over  the  hegam,  for  within  a  few  weeks  of  the  event  he 
died  of  fever.  His  son  purchased  a  valuable  piece  of  ground 
alongside  a  famous  shrine  for  his  interment.  A  great 
many  mourners  followed  the  remains  of  the  deceased,  who 
had  been  a  wealthy  man.  The  usual  ceremonies  were  duly 
performed,  and  the  body  committed  to  the  earth  to  rest 
there  till  the  last  Judgment.  The  burial  party  was  about 
to  return  homewards,  when,  lo !  to  the  surprise  of  every 
man,  the  grave  cracked,  a  narrow  fissure  appeared,  and  a 
cloud  of  smoke  commenced  to  issue  from  the  ground. 

" '  Who  is  this  that  you  have  brought  here?'  asked  the  cus- 
todians of  the  neighbouring  shrine.  '  What  man  burdened  with 
iniquities  is  this  that  the  ground  refuses  to  retain  him,  and  the 
smoke  oijahannam,  the  bottomless  pit,  issues  from  his  grave  ?' 

"  His  sins  and  iniquities,  whatever  they  were,  could  not 
have  been  hidden  from  Allah,  and  would  be  revealed  at 
the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  but  as  far  as  we  knew  the 
chief  butcher  had  been  a  good  Muslim  and  a  charitable  man. 
The  Mulla,  however,  said  that  it  was  clear  that  Allah  was 
angry  with  him  because  of  his  sinful  rivalry  with  the  hegam, 
and  the  unseemly  trick  he  played  with  the  tazia  on  the 
occasion  of  the  recent  Muharram,  as  such  conduct  was 
little  short  of  an  insult  to  Imam  Husain,  and  not  justifiable 
under  any  circumstances. 

"  This  judgment  ought  to  have  satisfied  the  hegam,  but 
it  would  seem  that,  deprived  of  the  excitement  of  the  annual 
contest,  which  for  years  had  been  the  chief  object  of  her  life, 
and  bitterly  chagrined  at  the  butcher's  final  triumph,  she  be- 
came very  ill  and  died  before  the  next  Muharram  came  round." 

310 


FAQUIRS 

OF  SORTS* 


li!l|!UII|l|i|l>illillti|lllll!i(l!li!:'.||iii;;iiii':>i. 


\. 


'A*rAQUlR* 
TROM'TnC: 


rROhTItR- 


3ir 


CHAPTER  II 

FAQUIRS 

Legends  and  stories  of 
Muslim  saints  and 
religions  devotees, 
both  ancient  and 
modem. 

tT  is  no  part  of  my 
plan  tx)  attempt 
to  describe  the 
distinguishing 
characteristics 
of  Muhammad- 
an   faquirs     in 
their       numerous 
orders,  but   Mus- 
lim   ascetics    are 
so    conspicuous 
amongst    the    re- 
ligious mendicants 
one  meets  in  India, 
that  the  following 
sketches  in  which 
they    figure    will 
probably      throw 
some  light    upon 
the  views  in  re- 
spect to  the  ascetic 
life    held    by    a 
large    and     very 
important  section 
of      the      Indian 
people. 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS  OF   IiNDIA 

It  is  well  known  that  throughout  the  Muslim  world  the 
saints  of  Islam  are  credited  with  extensive  miraculous 
powers,  delegated  to  them  by  the  Almighty  as  a  proof  of  His 
favour,  and  a  measure  of  their  deserts.  To  these  favoured 
ones  are  attributed  acts  various  in  character  and  import- 
ance, such  as,  to  mention  only  a  few,  the  cure  of  ordinary 
diseases  without  the  use  of  medicines,  the  raising  of  the 
dead  to  life,  causing  springs  of  water  to  flow  in  dry  places, 
walking  on  the  sea,  flying  through  the  air,  becoming 
invisible,  producing  earthquakes,  overturning  mountains, 
being  in  two  places  at  the  same  time,  arresting  the  sun  in 
his  course,  and  punishing  opponents  by  deadly  pestilences 
and  dreadful  cataclysms. 

India  has  been  blessed  with  the  last  resting-places  of  so 
many  Muslim  saints  of  the  first  importance  that  volumes 
might  be  easily  written  about  the  great  virtues  and  striking 
miracles  of  the  faquirs,  whose  tombs,  often  beautiful  and 
imposing  structures,  lie  scattered  over  the  land,  objects  of 
deep  veneration  to  all  pious  Muhammadans. 

Bearing  the  foregoing  points  in  mind,  the  reader  will  not 
be  moved  to  astonishment  by  any  of  the  legends,  or  narra- 
tives of  personal  experiences,  which  I  now  record. 


1.  A  Legend  of  Baba  Farid. 

I  was  conversing  one  day  with  a  Mussulman  regarding 
the  fast  of  Bamazan  just  concluded,  and  remarking  to  him 
that  in  such  excessively  hot  weather  as  we  had  been  having, 
much  hardship  must  have  been  experienced  in  observing 
the  very  strict  rules  of  the  fast.  The  Mussulman  stated 
that  after  abstinence  for  a  few  days,  the  bodily  system 
becomes  habituated  to  the  altered  conditions  of  life,  and 
does  not  feel  the  strain  put  upon  it.  In  connection  with 
this  point  I  described  to  him  Dr.  Tanner's  celebrated  fast  of 
forty  days  in  America.  The  native  listened  without  a  word 
of  comment,  and  then  told  me  the  following  story  about  a 
famous  Muhammadan  saint  named  Baba  Farid  (a.d.  1173- 
1265),  whose  tomb  was  at  Pak  Patan  on  the  road  to  Multan. 
The  saint  resolved  to  fast,  not  for  a  paltry /or^y  days,  but  for 
no  less  than  twelve  years.     He  had  a  bit  of  wood  shaped  to 

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FAQUIRS 

resemble  a  piece  of  bread,  and  whenever  he  was  hungry 
satisfied  the  cravings  of  his  appetite  by  gnawing  his  wooden 
substitute  for  bread.^  After  twelve  years  of  this,  he  returned 
home.  As  he  seemed  rather  inclined  to  take  credit  for  what 
he  had  done,  his  mother  remarked  that  his  penance  could 
hardly  be  considered  satisfactory,  seeing  that  he  had  always 
kept  the  thought  of  bread  before  him,  and  even  had  a 
semblance  of  the  real  substance  at  hand  to  allay  his  wish 
for  food.  Taking  these  remarks  to  heart,  Baba  Farid  left 
home  again  for  the  purpose  of  performing  another  penance. 
This  time  he  abstained  from  all  ordinary  human  food,  but 
lived  simply  upon  the  leaves  of  trees.  After  the  expiration 
of  a  dozen  years  he  turned  his  steps  homewards,  and  on  his 
arrival  was  welcomed  with  joy  by  his  mother.  One  day 
caressing  him  in  maternal  fashion  she  noticed  a  grey  hair 
on  his  head  and  pulled  it  out.  He  winced;  whereupon 
his  mother  expressed  her  surprise,  and  asked  him  how  he, 
who  shmnk  from  having  a  single  hair  removed,  found  it 
in  his  conscience  to  strip  the  trees  of  their  leaves  during 
twelve  long  years,  simply  to  sustain  his  own  life.  Struck 
by  these  reproachful  remarks,  the  ascetic  left  home  again, 
and  for  a  third  period  of  twelve  years  suspended  himself 
head  downwards  in  a  well,  without  partaking  of  food  of  any 
kind,  or  even  moistening  his  lips  with  a  drop  of  water.  As 
he  hung  in  the  well  the  birds  fed  upon  the  flesh  of  his  body, 
while  the  only  favour  he  asked  was  that  his  eyes  might  be 
spared.  When  this  great  penance,  if  such  it  can  be  called, 
was  accomplished,  Baba  Farid  heard  heavenly  voices  assur- 
ing him  that  his  devotion  had  been  accepted  by  Allah. 

At  the  tomb  of  this  saint  there  is  an  annual  fair  on  the 
fifth  day  of  the  Muharram,  and  Muhammadans  in  consider- 
able numbers  come  there  to  pass  through  a  narrow  gate- 
way known  as  the  Bihisti  Darwdza,  or  gate  of  Paradise, 
which  leads  to  the  Mausoleum,  and  is  opened  only  once  a 
year. 

*  "  He  (Baba  Farid)  was  a  thrifty  saint,  and  for  the  last  thirty  years  of 
his  life  he  supported  himself  by  holding  to  his  stomach  wooden  cakes  and 
frnits  whenever  he  felt  hungry." — W.  Crooke,  Popular  Religion  and  Folk- 
lore of  Northern  India,  vol.  i.  p.  216. 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 


2.  Baba  Jungu  Shah,  a  Punjabi  Saint. 

This  Muslim  saint,  as  I  learned  from  one  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen,  was  in  his  younger  days  a  very  strong,  active 
fellow,  and  a  daring  robber.  In  fact,  all  his  family  lived 
by  plundering  their  neighbours.  They  went  about  the 
country  armed,  for  it  was  in  the  time  of  the  Sikh  raj  that 
they  flourished  by  high-handed  depredations.  On  one  of 
their  business  visits  to  the  town  of  Gujrat  where  they  had 
reaped  a  good  harvest,  Jungu  was  appointed  to  remain 
behind  as  rear  guard,  to  settle  accounts  with  any  one  who 
might  venture  to  pursue  the  party  engaged  in  carrying  off 
the  spoil.  As  he  lingered  skulking  near  the  wall  of  the 
house  where  the  robbery  had  been  committed,  he  observed 
some  one  looking  over  the  wall,  and  unhesitatingly  struck  at 
him  with  his  trusty  sword.  The  blow,  well  delivered,  seemed 
to  sever  the  head  from  the  body,  and  Jungu  crouched  down 
to  await  events.  Again  a  head  peered  stealthily  over  the 
wall.  "  Surely,"  thought  Jungu,  "  that  is  the  very  same  man 
whom  I  decapitated  only  a  minute  ago."  But  it  was  no  time 
for  considerations  of  this  sort,  prompt  action  was  needed ; 
so  swinging  his  sharp  blade  with  unerring  skill  and  immense 
force,  he  struck  the  head  off  at  a  blow.  With  something 
akin  to  fear  he  looked  up  again,  and  to  his  horrified 
astonishment  saw  the  same  face  looking  at  him  sternly  as 
before.  Overcome  with  terror,  the  thief  prostrated  himself 
before  the  apparition,  for  such  he  deemed  it,  and  joining 
his  palms  together,  humbly  placed  himself  at  its  disposal. 

"  Go,"  said  the  apparition,  "  to  the  syad  ^  who  lives  at 

(naming  a  village  not  far  off),  and  ask  him  what  you 

are  to  do." 

Jungu,  obedient  to  the  command,  went  off  at  once  and 
narrated  to  the  syad  the  startling  events  that  had  taken 
place. 

"  It  was  Hazrat  Ali,  the  son-in-law  of  our  Prophet,  who 
appeared  to  you,"  said  the  saintly  man  at  the  conclusion  of 
Jungu's  story,  "  and  you  are  to  stay  here  in  order  to  learn  and 
ever  repeat  a  mantra  (spell)  which  I  shall  teach  you." 

'  Syad,  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  Prophet  Muhammad. 


FAQUIRS 

Jungu  waited  on  the  faquir  as  his  humble  disciple  for 
some  time,  acquiring  and  practising  the  mantra  which  was 
duly  communicated  to  him.  His  violence  of  temper  did  not, 
however,  leave  him,  and  one  day,  in  a  fit  of  rage,  he  killed 
his  own  mother  and  threw  her  body  into  a  well.  He  escaped 
punishment  for  his  shocking  deed,  as  it  was  committed  in 
Sikh  times  when  all  sorts  of  lawlessness  prevailed. 

But  Jungu,  struck  with  remorse,  now  embraced  an  ascetic 
life.  He  gave  up  his  evil  courses,  and  with  them  all  worldly 
concerns.  He  sat  idle  all  day  covered  with  ashes,  and 
hardly  deigned  to  notice  any  one. 

For  years  and  years  he  sat  in  the  same  place  rubbed  over 
with  ashes,  and  with  time  his  fame  grew  wonderfully.  From 
all  the  countryside  folks  came  to  consult  him  about  their 
ailments,  or  to  invoke  his  assistance  in  times  of  domestic  or 
public  trouble.  A  pill  made  from  the  mud  upon  which  he 
sat,  if  given  with  his  own  saintly  hand,  would  cure  almost 
any  disease,  and  his  help  in  other  matters,  too,  was  most 
efficacious ;  for  example,  men  often  came  and  pestered  him 
for  assistance  in  some  business  or  other  pending  in  a  law 
court.  In  such  cases  the  Baha  would  sometimes  wax  wroth 
and  chastise  his  too  importunate  visitor  with  a  heavy  stick 
for  tormenting  him.  The  beating  would  be  taken  in  all 
humility,  and  then  the  saint,  relenting,  would  probably  say, 
"  Go,  brother,  it  is  all  right,"  and  all  right  it  assuredly  was ; 
for,  whatever  the  facts  of  the  case  might  be,  the  Court  was 
sure  to  decide  in  favour  of  the  man  whom  the  Bdba  had  sent 
away  with  cheering  words. 

On  the  spot  where  Baba  Jungu  Shah  was  buried,  a  tomb 
has  been  erected,  and  is  an  object  of  veneration  to  the  people 
near  and  far. 

The  tombs  of  Muslim  saints  or  men  of  consequence  are 
commonly  covered  over  with  a  cloth,  which  might,  according 
to  circumstances,  be  of  any  material,  from  an  ordinary  white 
cotton  sheet  to  a  valuable  gold-embroidered  coverlet, 

A  devotee  of  Baba  Jungu  once  brought  a  sheet  worth 
four  or  five  rupees  and  laid  it  over  the  grave.  At  night  a 
thief  came  and  removed  it.  The  custodian  when  he  missed 
it  remarked,  "  Oh,  Baba  !  do  you  allow  your  property  to  be 
removed  by  thieves?"     A  faint  voice  came  from  the  grave, 


BRAHMANS,  THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

"  I  have  no  need  of  coverings,  but  the  sheet  shall  be  his  to 
whom  it  rightfully  belongs." 

In  three  days'  time  a  half -starved  man  came  to  the  shrine 
and  restored  the  sheet.  He  was  the  thief  who  had  stolen  it, 
but  he  could  not  keep  it.  Do  what  he  would,  as  long  as  he 
had  the  sheet  about  him  he  could  not  find  his  way  home. 
Everything  before  him  seemed  dark  and  confused,  but  the 
moment  he  set  his  face  towards  the  shrine,  his  way  was 
clear.  His  attempts  to  carry  it  away  being  thus  frustrated, 
he  had  brought  the  sheet  back  to  its  rightful  owner. 


3.  The  Khazanaii-wallah  Faquik, 

There  came  to  the  beautiful  Himalayan  station,  Murree, 
while  I  was  enjoying  a  holiday  there,  a  pious  Kashimri  faquir, 
who  took  up  his  abode  near  a  small  mosque  in  the  bazaar. 
He  made  a  stir  in  the  place,  and  after  he  went  away  I 
learned  from  a  Muhammadan  who  professed  to  have  been 
much  interested  in  his  doiugs,  the  following  particulars, 
which,  whether  accurate  or  not,  are  at  least  quite  in  keeping 
with  the  peculiarities  of  Indian  life  and  Indian  modes  of 
thought,  and  therefore  worth  recording  here. 

When  people  came  to  the  good  man,  as  they  did  daily, 
he  would  often,  in  the  case  of  the  very  poor,  return  them 
silver  coins  for  the  copper  ones  they  had  presented  to  him, 
drawing  the  former  from  below  the  dari  (carpet)  on  which 
he  used  to  sit.  Naturally  his  fame  went  abroad,  and  the 
holiness  of  Pir-ji,  or  the  Khazanah-wallah  faquir  (the  wealthy 
ascetic)  as  he  came  to  be  called,  was  common  talk  in  the 
town  and  the  neighbouring  villages.  When  he  had  been 
established  in  Murree  for  a  short  time  a  blind  beggar  came 
inquiring  for  him,  saying  he  had  travelled  all  the  way  from 
the  Kashmir  Valley  in  quest  of  the  Khazanah-wallah  faquir. 
He  asked  this  one  and  that  one  to  lead  him  to  Pir-ji,  and  at 
last  a  good-natured  person  undertook  to  present  him  to  the 
saint  on  the  next  Friday,  after  the  hour  of  prayer,  as  Pir-ji, 
absorbed  in  his  devotions,  was  not  always  accessible.  On 
Friday  the  blind  man  was  duly  conducted  to  the  mosque 
and  taken  up  to  the  faquir.  When  he  reached  the  good 
man  he  fell  prostrate  at  his  feet,  saying,  "  Hazrat,  I  have 

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FAQUIRS 

sought  you  long.  I  have  followed  you,  stone-blind  though 
I  am,  from  Kashmir  along  a  difficult  and  dangerous  road. 
Many  troubles  have  I  endured  to  gain  your  honoured 
presence.  Have  pity  upon  me ;  have  pity  and  restore  your 
slave's  sight.  My  children  are  starving  because  I  am  blind. 
Take  pity  upon  us,  for  the  sake  of  Allah  the  most  merciful ! " 
Thus  pleaded  the  blind  man,  but  the  saint  heeded  him  not. 
The  poor  sufferer  renewed  his  plaintive  entreaties  again  and 
again,  and,  at  length,  touched  by  his  faith  and  perhaps 
harassed  by  his  importunity,  the  pir  ordered  some  water  to 
be  brought.  An  attendant  hastened  to  fulfil  his  command. 
While  the  wondering  crowd  looked  on  in  hushed  reverence, 
he  poured  a  little  of  the  water  into  the  hollow  of  his  palm, 
he  blew  upon  it,  uttered  a  prayer  to  Almighty  God,  and  then 
dashed  the  handful  of  water  against  the  closed  lids  of  the 
blind  man.  Several  times  he  repeated  this,  while  the  patient 
trembled  visibly  from  the  emotion  which  possessed  him. 

The  increasing  crowd  pressed  closer  and  closer  about 
Pir-ji  and  the  sightless  beggar.  Eequesting  the  assembly  to 
pray  earnestly  for  the  restoration  of  the  poor  man's  vision, 
the  ascetic  applied  his  fingere  to  the  beggar's  closed  eyelids, 
and  gradually  but  firmly  forced  them  open.  Upon  this  the 
blind  man  recovered  his  visual  powers  so  far  that  he  could 
dimly  discern  objects  about  him.  Gradually,  under  the 
healer's  touch,  the  eyes  regained  their  lost  efficiency.  The 
form  of  his  benefactor  became  distinct  to  the  patient,  the 
presence  of  the  wondering  crowd  of  men  and  women  was 
no  longer  only  felt ;  the  lovely  hills,  the  blue  sky,  and  the 
glorious  sun  once  more  entered  into  the  life  of  the  man,  thus 
strangely  cured  of  his  terrible  affliction. 

In  a  transport  of  gratitude,  the  beggar  declared  that  he 
would  never,  never  leave  Pir-ji.  He  vowed  he  would  be  his 
humble  and  devoted  attendant,  and  slave,  as  long  as  he  lived. 

And  remain  he  did.  To  remind  him  of  his  starving  wife 
and  children  was  useless;  for  in  an  ecstasy  of  pious  con- 
fidence he  would  say  that  the  hand  which  had  restored  him 
to  sight  would  never  let  his  children  die  for  want  of  bread. 

Of  course  Khazanah-wallah  Pir's  fame  increased  mightily 
after  his  miracle.  Crowds  flocked  to  him,  and  in  very  self- 
defence  from  the  pertinacious  attentions  of  his  admirers,  he 

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BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

had  to  seek  strict  seclusion.  He  hid  himself  in  a  house 
in  some  out-of-the-way  place,  and  the  quondam  blind 
beggar  constituted  himself  doorkeeper.  The  pir's  hiding- 
place  was  soon  discovered,  but  only  deserving  people  got 
access  to  him,  namely,  such  as  were  able  to  satisfy  the  door- 
keeper of  their  sincerity,  their  urgent  need  of  spiritual  or 
other  help  and — their  ability  to  pay  up. 

All  went  on  pretty  well  for  a  time,  till  a  certain  Friday 
when  Pir-ji  emerged  from  his  seclusion  to  go  to  the  mosque 
for  worship.  There  were  several  men  and  women  waiting 
to  interview  him,  but  not  paying  any  attention  to  them,  the 
saint  began  to  sniff  about  in  a  peculiar  way. 

"  There  is  a  very  unpleasant  odour  here,"  he  said.  "  A 
very  disagreeable  smell,  the  smell  of  ill-gotten  money,"  and 
looking  very  seriously  at  his  self-constituted  doorkeeper, 
cried  angrily,  "  Begone  for  ever,  under  fear  of  the  displeasure 
of  God!" 

Every  one  felt  and  admitted  the  justice  of  the  sentence, 
because  many  had  suffered  from  the  doorkeeper's  exactions, 
which  had  indeed  been  no  secret, 

Pir-ji  got  still  more  honour  from  this  act  of  his ;  both 
on  account  of  the  spiritual  insight  which  enabled  him  to 
detect  the  evil-doings  of  his  unworthy  servant  and  the 
summary  justice  which  he  had  meted  out  to  him. 

Applications  for  his  help  and  favour  increased  in  number, 
and  amongst  others,  there  came  a  man  hobbling  along  with 
soiled  rags  about  his  feet  and  hands,  dirtily  clad  and  most 
likely  a  leper — an  object  of  mingled  pity  and  disgust.  Pir-ji, 
having  compassion  on  this  miserable  being,  took  him  into 
his  room  and  give  him  a  bath  with  his  own  holy  hands,  and 
whatever  his  previous  condition  may  have  been,  the  unclean 
mendicant  emerged  whole  and  sound. 

The  man  thus  wonderfully  healed  was  installed  as  door- 
keeper to  Pir-ji,  but,  such  is  the  weakness  of  human  nature 
in  face  of  the  temptation  of  money,  that  notwithstanding 
daily  intercourse  with  the  saint,  and  full  knowledge  of  the 
unhappy,  if  deserved,  fate  of  his  predecessor,  the  new  door- 
keeper could  not  refrain  from  drifting  into  similar  objection- 
able courses.  With  unerring  sagacity  Pir-ji  literally  smelt  out 
his  unlawful  cupidity,  and  angrily  sent  him  about  his  business. 

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FAQUIRS 

After  this  the  good  man  was  a  martyr  to  the  assiduities 
of  his  numerous  and  devoted  admirers,  who,  though  they 
gave  him  no  rest,  never  came  to  him  quite  empty-handed. 
Daily  a  little  pile  of  presents  would  accumulate  before  him, 
for  it  would  have  been  indecorous  for  any  one  to  approach 
him  without  a  gift,  yet  it  was  well  understood  that  the  saint 
cared  for  none  of  these  things,  and  that  from  his  own 
mysterious  treasury,  he  could,  if  so  minded,  produce  as  much 
gold  and  silver  as  he  wished. 

However,  one  night  Pir-ji  himself  disappeared,  leaving 
no  trace  behind.  He  had  gone,  doubtless,  because  he  wished 
to  separate  himself  more  eflfectually  from  the  distractions 
and  disappointments  of  a  wicked  world,  but  the  unre- 
generate,  with  the  perversity  which  characterises  the 
class  all  the  world  over,  began  to  suspect  that  the  three 
Kashmiris  were  confederates  who  had  been  driven  out  of 
the  Happy  Valley  by  the  famine  prevailing  there,  and  had 
found  in  the  pious  credulity  of  their  co-reHgionists  a 
means  of  escaping  hard  times,  and  of  replenishing  their 
empty  purses. 

4.  Adventures  of  a  Pseudo-Faquir. 

A  Mussulman  named  Amir  belonging  to  a  family  of  pro- 
fessionnl  beggars,  whose  members,  even  should  tliey  happen  to 
be  rich,  may  not  marry  till  they  have  solicited  alms,  for  at 
least  one  day,  did  not  care  to  confine  his  mendicancy  to  such 
a  very  limited  time.  Both  amusement  and  profit  might,  he 
thought,  be  got  out  of  an  extensive  begging  tour,  so  he  started 
on  his  travels  with  hopeful  anticipations. 

In  the  course  of  his  wanderings  he  reached  a  certain 
native  State  in  the  Bombay  Presidency,  and  there,  far  away 
from  his  native  Punjab,  set  up  for  a  great  saint.  To  give 
plausibility  to  his  pretensions,  he  let  it  be  understood 
that  he  lived  without  food,  and  consequently  was  in 
no  danger  of  being  starved  to  death ;  of  course,  his 
fame  spread  abroad,  and  crowds  came  to  visit  this  holy 
man  from  a  far  land,  and  to  ask  his  help  towards  the 
attainment  of  their  various  desires.  He  began  waxing 
quite  rich  from  the  offerings  of  the  people,  and  excited  the 

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BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

jealousy  of  the  local  sadhns  and  Brahmans,  who  represented 
to  the  Eajah  that  the  man  was  a  mere  impostor  and  a 
wholesale  robber  of  the  people.  Now  the  Eajah  himself 
had  at  least  one  longstanding  desire  which  the  local  clergy 
and  professional  sadhus  had  not  been  able  to  gratify.  It 
was  the  desire,  so  common  and  so  imperious  in  India,  to 
have  a  son  born  to  him.  So,  he  went  in  person  to  the 
faquir  and  solicited  his  good  offices  towards  this  end. 
Amir  promised  him  a  son  within  the  year,  and  in  his  heart 
resolved  to  put  hundreds  of  miles  between  himself  and  the 
Eajah  long  before  the  twelve  months  should  have  run  their 
course.  The  chief,  elated  by  the  ascetic's  solemn  promise, 
showered  presents  upon  him ;  but  the  astute  local  Brahmans 
were  still  influential  enough  to  induce  their  Eajah  to 
forcibly  detain  the  Punjabi  saint  till  the  fulfilment  of  the 
prophecy,  and  they  did  not  conceal  from  the  faquir  their 
private  determination  that  if  he  proved  to  be  a  mere  impostor 
he  should  lose  his  life  for  having  imposed  upon  and  robbed 
the  people. 

Our  seer,  though  honourably  treated,  was  now,  day  and 
night,  under  police  surveillance ;  flight  was  impossible,  and 
his  only  hope  of  saving  his  life  lay  apparently  in  the 
fulfilment  of  his  prediction.  Through  the  infinite  kindness 
of  Allah,  his  lucky  star  prevailed.  Within  the  year  a  son 
was  born  to  the  Eajah,  who,  in  his  joy  and  gratitude,  loaded 
the  successful  prophet  with  gifts  of  value.  Having  vindi- 
cated his  power  and  good  faith  in  the  eyes  of  men,  the 
wonder-working  saint,  now  homesick,  expressed  a  wish  to 
take  his  departure,  having,  as  he  pretended,  vowed  a 
pilgrimage  to  the  holy  city  of  Amritsar.  Thither  he  was 
permitted  to  go  at  the  Eajah's  expense,  attended  by  an 
official  escort  worthy  of  his  greatness  and  the  important 
service  he  had  rendered  to  the  Prince. 

When  he  reached  Amritsar  he  was  quite  near  home,  and 
his  anxiety  to  escape  public  notice  and  possible  recognition 
became  very  great ;  so,  bidding  farewell  to  his  escort,  upon 
whom  he  bestowed  his  saintly  benediction,  he  quickly 
sneaked  back  to  his  native  city,  Lahore,  with  his  hooty. 

On  his  way  home  from  the  railway  station  he  was  met 
and  recognised  by  an  intimate  Muslim  friend,  who  learned 

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FAQUIRS 

from  his  own  lips  the  above  story  of  his  adventures  and 
narrow  escape,  and  the  same  day  related  the  whole  affair  to 
me. 

5.  The  Influence  of  Faquirs  in  Seculab  Affairs. 

At  the  gate  of  my  compound  I  observed  a  group  of 
three  persons,  a  mendicant  faquir  seated,  a  haniya 
saluting  him  with  joined  palms  raised  to  his  forehead,  and 
a  Muhammadan  standing  near  by  in  a  very  deferential 
attitude.  This  somewhat  heterogeneous  group  at  my  gate- 
way, backed  as  it  was  by  the  picturesque  tomb  of  a  Muslim 
pir,  on  the  other  side  of  the  road,  interested  me,  and  when 
the  Muhammadan  referred  to  came  in  to  pay  his  respects, 
I  learned  from  him  that  the  haniya  was  passing  the  faquir- 
sahib,  and  in  the  act  of  so  doing  made  him  a  low  salaam, 
saying,  "Sir,  I  am  going  to  my  business,  be  pleased  to 
extend  your  favour  to  me."  The  faquir  took  not  the 
slightest  notice  of  the  Hindu's  salutation.  Such  conduct,  of 
course,  proved  his  importance,  so  the  Muhammadan  stopped 
to  take  special  notice  of  him,  and  at  once  discovered  that  he 
was  a  well-known  ascetic  who  was  in  the  habit  of  spending 
his  time  near  the  Lahori  and  Shahalmi  gates  of  the  city. 
He  was  much  sought  after  by  persons  who  were  in  trouble 
or  longed  for  the  gratification  of  some  special  desire. 

My  informant  said :  Many  seek  the  good  man,  but  he 
is  very  inaccessible,  they  follow  him  about  but  he  seems 
always  to  be  eluding  them.  Sometimes  to  escape  the 
importunities  of  his  votaries,  he  hides  himself  in  the  houses 
of  quite  low  or  even  disreputable  people,  publicans  and 
sinners  in  fact,  but  his  credit  is  so  high  that  men  come 
from  distant  places  to  gain  his  favour.  As  I  expressed  a 
wish  for  more  particulars  about  this  remarkable  personage, 
I  was  told  the  following  story : — 

It  is  well  known  to  the  native  public  that  an  important 
official  in  a  native  State  incurred  the  unjust  displeasure  of 
his  master,  and  was  summarily  removed  from  his  high  posi- 
tion. In  his  great  trouble  he  came  to  faquir-sahib  for  help, 
but  the  man  of  God  would  not  condescend  to  notice  the  fallen 
statesman.  Discouraged  but  not  despairing,  the  discarded 
minister  followed  the  saint  about  persistently  day  after  day, 
X  .  321   • 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

showing  him  the  greatest  respect  and  attention.  Weeks 
went  by  without  the  faquir  deigning  to  so  much  as  notice 
his  petitioner.  One  day,  however,  irritated  by  the  untiring 
importunities  of  the  ex-official,  he  flew  into  a  rage,  and  gave 
him  a  good  beating  with  a  stick,  till  he  drew  blood  from 
him.  Later  on,  mollified  by  the  patient,  uncomplaining 
humility  of  the  fallen  man,  faquir-sahib  said  to  him,  "  Go 
away,  why  do  you  persecute  me?  Your  wish  is  already 
accomplished,  you  waste  your  time  in  following  me." 
Never  doubting  the  words  of  the  man  of  God,  the  humili- 
ated courtier  hurried  off  rejoicing  towards  his  home,  and 
on  the  way  thither  was  met  by  a  trooper  who,  respect- 
fully dismounting  from  his  horse,  handed  him  a  letter, 
which  was  actually  a  summons  from  his  august  master, 
with  a  promise  of  reinstatement  in  his  old  position. 

After  he  had  been  reinstalled  in  his  office  he  came 
and  gratefully  presented  the  faquir  with  a  bag  of  rupees 
and  a  silk  choga,  for  he  felt  certain  that  it  was  his  devo- 
tion to  the  saint  that  had  caused  justice  to  be  done  to  him. 

There  and  then  the  saint  flung  the  rupees  amongst 
the  crowd.  The  silk  choga  he  presented  to  a  passing 
dervish. 

Of  the  faquir's  past  history  I  learned  some  further 
curious  details.  He  was  a  Kashmiri,  and  in  his  younger 
days  followed  the  very  ordinary  calling  of  a  common 
porter.  The  ease  with  which  he  carried  the  heaviest 
loads  on  his  head  attracted  the  attention  of  his  fellows, 
and  close  observation  satisfied  them  that  the  burdens  did 
not  actually  rest  upon  his  head,  but  seemed  to  be  floating 
in  the  air,  as  if  carried  by  unseen  hands.  This  uncanny 
circumstance  went  against  him  with  his  brother-porters, 
who  objected  to  his  being  in  their  fraternity,  and  effectually 
"boycotted"  him.  There  was  nothing  left  for  him  but 
to  become  a  religious  mendicant. 

If  this  austere  saint  has  a  weakness  it  is  to  have  himself 
attended  to  by  the  barber,  and  all  the  barbers  who  know 
him  are  only  too  glad  to  serve  him,  not  only  with  an  eye 
to  prospective  spiritual  advantages,  but  for  the  immediate 
pecuniary  benefit  they  derive  from  their  professional 
ministration,  for  it  invariably  comes   to  pass  that  while 

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FAQUIRS 

faquir-sahib  is  being  attended  to  in  the  open  air,  probably 
under  a  tree  by  the  roadside,  some  inquisitive  person  or 
other  loiters  about  to  see  what  is  going  on.  Taking 
advantage  of  this,  the  faquir,  as  soon  as  the  barber  has 
done  his  work,  simply  but  authoritatively  directs  the  idle 
onlooker  to  pay  the  man  eight  annas  or  a  rupee,  just  as 
the  fancy  takes  him.  The  bystander,  without  demur,  does 
what  he  is  ordered  to  do,  and  the  barber  goes  away  rejoicing 
at  such  handsome  remuneration. 


6.  A  Syad's  Fire-Bath. 

Information  reached  me  that  a  wonderful  syad  was  in 
Lahore  who  would  miraculously  hathe  in  fire  in  the  pres- 
ence of  all  who  cared  to  see  him  do  it.  Admission 
to  his  performance  could  be  gained  only  by  duly  paid-for 
tickets. 

Having  purchased  the  needful  passports,  I  went  at 
the  appointed  hour  to  see  him  execute  the  advertised 
feat. 

Through  a  tall  arched  gateway  I  was  admitted  into  the 
ample  quadrangle  of  an  Indian  serai,  having  on  each  of  the 
four  sides  an  arcaded  verandah  running  along  the  front  of  a 
range  of  little  rooms  provided  for  the  temporary  accommoda- 
tion of  passing  travellers.  In  the  centre  of  the  court  a 
considerable  place  had  been  rudely  railed  off  with  bamboos, 
and  round  it  were  ranged  chairs  and  benches  for  the  use 
of  the  spectators.  The  night  was  intensely  dark;  the 
lighting  of  the  place,  if  of  quite  primitive  character,  was 
suitable  and  effective  enough.  On  the  top  of  posts  set  up 
at  irregular  intervals  about  the  enclosed  area,  large  earthen- 
ware saucers  containing  oil-seed  flared  away  restlessly  in 
the  night  breeze,  producing  smoke  as  well  as  light.  At 
one  extremity  of  the  railed-off  space,  a  bed  of  glowing 
charcoal  about  twelve  feet  long  and  four  feet  wide  was  a 
conspicuous  object,  and  round  it,  like  gnomes  or  ghouls, 
two  or  three  almost  naked  men  were  flitting  about,  now 
raking  up  the  fire,  now  fanning  it  into  a  fierce  glow,  now 
beating  it  down  to  a  level  surface. 

All  the  chairs  and  benches  were  soon  occupied  by  eager 

323 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS  OF  INDIA 

spectators,  and  a  large  number  of  men  stood  crowding  up 
behind  those  who  had  secured  seats,  at  rates  varying  from 
two  to  eight  annas  each.  In  the  front  row  of  chairs  were 
a  few  Europeans  of  the  lower  ranks,  subordinate  railway 
employees,  and  suchlike.  Respectability  was,  of  course, 
contemptuously  absent  from  such  a  place  as  this !  No 
women,  whether  European  or  native,  were  present.  A  band 
of  drummers  and  cymbalists  placed  near  the  field  of  fire 
treated  us  to  such  music  as  they  could  produce  out  of  their 
instruments,  in  the  way  of  rhythmic  throbs  and  clangs  and 
jingles,  enlivened  occasionally  by  strange  demoniac  cries 
from  the  musicians  themselves. 

After  considerable  delay,  during  which  the  audience 
behaved  in  the  most  orderly  manner,  the  syad  made  his 
appearance  in  the  arena  with  many  attendants.  He  was 
a  spare-built  young  man,  a  trifle  above  the  average  height. 
His  attire  consisted  of  a  dark  blue  loongee  or  sheet  tied 
round  his  waist,  and  a  shirt  of  the  same  colour  hanging 
over  it  and  terminating  about  three  inches  above  the  knees. 
On  his  head  he  wore  a  crimson  fez.  As  soon  as  the  syad 
appeared,  he  commenced  jumping  about  the  place,  shouting 
Husain !  Husain ! !  Husain  ! ! !  in  crescendo  tones,  till  many 
Muslims  present  caught  up  and  echoed  back  the  cry  with 
fervent  enthusiasm.  When  he  had  shouted  for  a  few 
minutes  in  this  way,  and  worked  up  the  feelings  of  his 
audience,  the  syad  commenced  a  long  harangue  proclaiming 
in  well-turned  sentences  his  own  unworthiness  and  his 
utter  insignificance  in  the  sight  of  God.  He  tlien  protested 
that  his  miraculous  fire-bath,  as  performed  by  him  in  many 
places  in  the  presence  of  thousands  of  spectators,  was 
possible  only  through  the  help  of  Imam  Husain,  a  state- 
ment received  with  appreciative  applause  by  many  followers 
of  the  Prophet,  who  had  mustered  in  force  on  this  occasion. 
But  the  syad  went  on  to  tell  us  that  there  might  be  sceptics 
and  cavillers  who  would  say  that  he  protected  his  person  by 
some  chemical  substance  or  other  from  the  effects  of  the  fire, 
and  so,  in  order  to  disabuse  our  minds  of  any  such  erroneous 
notion,  he  would,  as  a  preliminary  step,  give  himself  a  water- 
bath  in  our  presence.  Off  went  the  red  fez  and  also  the 
blue  shirt,  and  the  syad,  seated  on  a  chair,  called  for  hihishtis 

324 


FAQUIRS 

(water-carriers).  A  score  or  more  were  present  with  their 
goat-skins  full  of  water  in  readiness  for  this  event.  The 
syad,  who  had  taken  up  a  position  quite  close  to  where  I 
sat,  now  enjoyed  an  elaborate  cold  water  bath,  soaping 
himself  freely  and  having  a  deluge  of  water  poured  over 
him,  which  caused  the  ground  for  many  yards  around 
to  become  a  puddle  and  nothing  else.  When  his  ablu- 
tions were  over,  he  resumed  his  red  fez  and  blue  shirt. 
More  haranguing  now  followed,  more  deafening  shouts  of 
"  Husain !  Husain ! !  Husain  ! ! ! "  responded  to  again  and 
again  by  the  excited  Muslims.  By  this  time  clouds  of  inky 
blackness  were  gathering  fast  overhead,  angry  flashes  of 
vivid  lightning  and  low  muttering  thunder  warned  us  that 
a  storm  was  brewing  and  would  soon  be  upon  us.  The 
assembly  becoming  impatient  of  mere  harangues  and 
shoutings,  made  noisy  demands  for  the  promised  exhibition, 
and  at  length,  after  at  least  two  hours  of  fooling,  the 
business  of  the  evening  was  reached.  Our  syad,  waving  a 
bamboo  with  a  flag  at  the  end  of  it,  capered  wildly  about 
the  place,  and  then  with  loud  cries  of  "  Husain !  Husain ! " 
ran  rapidly  over  the  bed  of  almost  white-hot  charcoal  from 
end  to  end.  He  was  certainly  barefooted  when  he  did 
this ;  but  as  he  often  ran  over  the  spot  which  the  MhisMis 
had  deluged  with  water,  the  soles  of  his  feet  could  not  have 
been  otherwise  than  moist,  and  most  probably  coated  with 
damp  mud. 

Enthusiasm  amongst  the  Muslims  now  waxed  stronger 
and  stronger,  and  volunteers  came  forward  to  essay  the 
perilous  run  over  the  coals,  avowing  their  firm  trust  in 
Imam  Husain  and  complete  confidence  in  the  syad's  help. 
With  the  rest  came  a  young  Hindu,  who  ofiered  to  run  over 
the  live  coals  without  any  help  at  all ;  but  he  was  rudely 
hustled  to  the  rear,  protesting  with  emphasis  against  the 
unfair  treatment  he  was  receiving.  Two  or  three  men  now 
crossed  rapidly  over  the  coals  one  at  a  time,  while  the  syad 
himself  ran  along  the  ground  beside  the  adventurous  hero 
of  the  moment,  holding  him  by  the  hand  encouragingly. 
How  they  all  fared,  I  could  not  tell ;  but  one  man  certainly 
complained  aloud  that  he  had  been  cruelly  burned.  He 
demanded  of  the  syad  to  ease  his  pain,  and  bewailed  his 

325 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

own  sufferings  as  only  an  Oriental  can  do.  But  the  syad 
could  not  help  one  who  was  obviously  enduring  the  just 
penalty  of  his  own  want  of  faith.  So  the  moaning  and 
groaning  went  on. 

"  The  fire-bath  !  the  fire-batli ! "  cried  the  impatient 
people,  and  after  some  more  talk  and  some  more  shouting 
of  "  Husain !  Husain ! "  the  syad,  with  clothes  and  cap  on, 
and  sitting  quite  low,  allowed  a  follower  to  pour  over  his 
head  a  pan  of  live  charcoal.  There  were  so  many  of  his 
followers  clustered  round  him,  and  the  dying  light  from  the 
cressets  was  so  uncertain,  that  I  could  not  see  very  well 
what  occurred;  but  there  was  a  good  deal  of  commotion 
and  tremendous  shouting  over  the  event,  though  the  risk  to 
the  performer  seemed  ridiculously  small.  Following  the 
master,  a  disciple  came  forward  and  underwent  a  similar 
ordeal.  I  stood  up  to  see  what  was  going  on.  Scarcely 
had  the  live  charcoal  reached  his  head  when  he  sprang 
to  his  feet  and  leaped  about.  The  glowing  pieces  fell  on 
all  sides  as  they  would  naturally  do;  the  attendants  and 
the  followers  of  the  Prophet  shouted  "Ya!  Husain"  in 
exultation. 

As  ill-luck  would  have  it,  however,  one  bit  of  red-hot 
charcoal  had  effected  a  lodgment  in  a  fold  of  the  cap  of  the 
performing  Muhammadan,  and  it  began  to  smoke  visibly. 
When  his  attention  was  drawn  to  what  was  going  on,  he 
removed  his  cap  with  ludicrous  haste,  and  smothered  the 
fire  between  his  hands,  to  the  great  amusement  of  the 
unbelievers  present. 

By  this  time  the  big  rain  drops  began  to  hiss  upon  the 
bed  of  lighted  charcoal,  a  downpour  of  rain  was  imminent, 
and  the  assembly  broke  up  hurriedly. 

Exaggerated  and  incorrect  accounts  of  the  night's  doings 
found  their  way  into  both  English  and  native  local  news- 
papers, and  probably  the  syad  is  already  numbered  amongst 
the  miracle-workers  of  this  generation. 

The  performance  as  such  was  not  nearly  as  satisfactory 
as  some  of  a  similar  kind  described  by  writers  who  have 
witnessed  them  elsewhere  in  India,  and  also  in  Polynesia, 
Japan,  and  other  places ;  but  some  interest  attaches  to  the 
instance  I  have  brought  before  the  reader  because  of  the 

526 


FAQUIRS 

fact  that  the  performers  were  Muslims,  the  leader  professing 
to  act  under  the  protection  of  Imam  Husain,  the  Prophet's 
grandson.^ 

Europeans  have  seen  and  described  instances  of  fire- 
walking  performed  by  natives  of  India,  not  only  in  their 
own  country — as  at  Benares  in  1898 — but  in  Mauritius  and 
Trinidad  also.  However,  Indians  do  not  enjoy  a  monopoly 
or  this  art,  for  the  practice  of  fire- walking  is  known  in  Fiji, 
the  Society  Islands,  the  Straits  Settlements,  Japan,  Bulgaria, 
and  no  doubt  in  other  places  also.  Some  Europeans,  for 
example  Colonel  Judgson  at  Earatonga,  have,  it  is  stated, 
actually  gone  with  the  performers  barefooted  over  red-hot 
stones,  and  escaped  scathless. 

Some  modernised  Hindu  sadhus,  who  gave  such  exhibi- 
tions, modestly  aver  that  the  ability  to  perform  the  miracle 
is  a  manifestation  of  Divine  grace,^  while  others  claim  that 
it  is  by  their  incantations  and  ceremonies  that  they  are  able 
to  subdue  the  fierce  heat  of  the  fire.^ 

The  Shinto  priests  of  Japan  affirm  that  their  God, 
propitiated  by  acceptable  religious  ceremonies,  casts  out 
the  soul  of  the  fire,  and  thus  makes  manifest  his  power 
to  his  faithful  followers.*  The  Polynesian  hereditary  fire- 
walkers,  who  do  not  always  have  recourse  to  incantations 

*  An  interesting  description  of  a  wonderful  display  of  rival  fire-walking 
by  a  wicked  magician  and  a  saintly  "Friend  of  God,"  will  be  fonnd  in' the 
story  of  Sidi  Ikhlef  (a.d.  1552),  narrated  by  Colonel  Trumelet  in  his  Les 
Saints  de  r Islam,  Paris,  1881.  In  this  story  the  magician  walked  scathless 
over  a  bed  of  burning  wood,  performing  his  perQous  journey  barefooted  and 
without  haste.  The  saint  of  course  outdid  his  rival,  for  he  actually  halted 
in  the  midst  of  the  flames,  Avhich  bent  down  to  lick  his  feet,  and  there 
rested  himself  in  the  furnace,  surrounded  by  tongues  of  fire. 

*  "Fire-walking  Miracle. — The  residents  of  Benares  were  afforded  one 
more  opportunity  of  witnessing  the  'fire- walking  miracle.'  Maharajah 
Bahadur  Sir  Jotiadra  Mohuu  Tagore,  who  is  now  at  Benares,  invited  the 
Civil  and  Military  Officers  at  the  station,  as  well  as  the  native  nobility  and 
leading  gentry  of  the  place,  to  witness  an  exhibition  of  this  '  miracle,'  which 
was  to  take  place  on  the  6th  instant.  Jangam  Baba,  the  sadhu  who  performs 
this  miracle,  claims  his  performance  as  a  manifestation  of  Divine  grace,  and 
challenges  scientific  men  to  account  for  it  in  any  other  way." — The  Tribune, 
(Lahore). 

2  "Les  Dompteurs  du  Feu,"  by  Dr.  Th.  Pascal  {Annales  de  Sderuxs 
Psyehiques,  July-August  1899). 

*  "The  Shinto  Fire- Walkers  of  Tokio,"  by  Miss  Ozaki (a  Japanese  lady), 
in  the  TVide  World  Magazine  for  December  1899. 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND   MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

or  religious  ceremonies  of  any  kind,  declare  that  they 
possess  power  over  the  heat  and  the  destructive  energy  of 
fire.  An  Indian  domestic  to  whom  I  mentioned  this  matter, 
assured  me  that  it  was  a  well-known  fact  that  many  persons 
possessed  the  mantra  or  spell  for  "  tying  up  fire,!'  He  was 
acquainted  with  some  cooks  who  when  they  coveted  a 
particular  situation  would  "tie  up"  their  rival's  fire,  so 
that  with  ever  so  big  a  blaze  under  the  pot,  there  would 
be  no  cooking  done.  Of  course,  the  rival  cook,  deprived 
of  the  heat  necessary  for  preparing  food  for  the  table,  would 
get  into  trouble  with  his  employer  and  be  dismissed ;  and 
the  possessor  of  the  mantra,  if  he  played  his  cards  well, 
would  be  installed  in  his  place. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  ample  testimony  to 
prove  that  certain  persons,  in  various  parts  of  the  East, 
are  able  to  walk  barefooted  for  a  few  yards  over  a  bed 
of  white-hot  charcoal  or  stones,  and  suffer  no  injury 
thereby  ;  but  unfortunately  no  explanation  that  adequately 
accounts  for  the  various  phenomena  in  this  connection 
described  by  professed  eye-witnesses  has,  as  far  as  I  know, 
been  yet  put  forward.^ 

7.  The  Faquir  of  Manasbal. 

On  the  banks  of  pretty  lake  Manasbal  in  the  valley  of 
Kashmir,  there  used  to  live  some  years  ago — perhaps  he 
lives  there  still — an  old  faquir  who  had  acquired  a  sort  of 
reputation  from  the  fact  that  he  had  with  his  own  hands 
constructed  the  grave  in  which  he  was  eventually  to  lie. 
There  could  be  no  doubt,  after  five  minutes  with  the  old 
man,  that  he  was  proud  of  his  work,  of  the  attention  it 
received  from  visitors,  and  the  consideration  it  seemed  to 
bring  to  himself. 

On  one  of  my  visits  to  Manasbal  he  conducted  me  very 
ceremoniously,  but  with  ill-concealed  pleasure,  to  see  the 

^  Readers  wto  care  for  more  particulars  on  this  subject  are  referred  to 
Mr.  Andrew  Lang's  Modern  Mythology,  chapter  xii.  and  his  article  "The 
Fire- Walk  "  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Psychical  Research,  February 
1900.  An  excellent  summary  may  also  be  read  in  the  English  Mechanic, 
9th  and  16th  March  1900. 

328 


*^Of  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

or 


< 

< 
o 

< 

a 

H 


FAQUIRS 

grave  which  he  had  prepared  for  himself  at  the  further  end 
of  a  tunnel  some  fifty  or  sixty  feet  long,  which  had  been 
excavated  in  the  hillside  entirely  by  his  own  hands. 

Although  the  "  rock  "  through  which  he  had  worked  was 
not  hard,  still  his  labour  had  not  been  inconsiderable,  for 
the  tunnel  he  had  excavated  was  over  six  feet  high,  and 
wide  enough  to  allow  two  persons  to  walk  abreast  in  it. 
At  the  end  of  it  was  a  chamber  containing  the  gaping 
sepulchre.  As  became  a  pious  recluse,  the  proud  owner  of 
the  grave  discoursed  in  the  usual  way  about  the  uncertainty 
of  life,  and  the  fleeting,  illusive  enjoyments  of  this  world, 
while  drawing  my  attention  to  the  neatness  and  cleanliness 
of  his  future  and  last  abode.  For  the  present  the  good 
man  lived  alone,  in  a  very  neat  cottage,  cultivated  a  small 
patch  of  ground  adjoining,  and  grew  upon  it  the  most 
delicious  peaches.  Of  some  of  these  really  excellent  fruits 
of  his  labour  he  made  me  a  formal  present,  and,  hermit 
though  he  was,  did  not  disdain  a  return  in  the  shape  of 
current  silver  coin,  for  which  I  fancy  he  could  find  many 
good  uses.  Strange  stories,  not  always  to  his  credit,  were 
told  about  the  Manasbal  faquir  by  his  Kashmiri  country- 
men ;  but  as  far  as  I  could  learn  his  greatest  claim  to  the 
consideration  he  expected  and  certainly  received,  was  the 
strange  grave  he  had  made  ready  by  his  own  toil  for  the 
reception  of  his  body  after  death. 

The  devotee  and  his  grave  have  for  a  generation  been 
well  known  to  travellers  in  Kashmir,  and  have  been 
mentioned  in  books  relating  to  that  country. 

Opposite  this  page  is  a  photograph  of  the  hermit,  for 
which  he  posed  willingly  enough,  not  having  quite  ex- 
tinguished in  his  breast  the  insidious  vice  of  vanity,  which, 
by  a  strange  irony,  was  encouraged  and  kept  alive  by  his 
open  grave,  which  was  intended  no  doubt  in  the  first 
instance  as  a  symbol  of  his  detachment  from  this  world 
of  sorrow,  and  as  an  indication  of  his  desire  for  an  early 
release. 

8.  The  Name  of  God. 

Four  or  five  faquirs  who  had  in  the  usual  way  been 
roaming    about    the    country,    like    mediaeval    wandering 

329 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,  AND  MUSLIMS  OF   INDIA 

scholars,  happened  to  meet  casually  at  Lahore,  and,  as  is 
the  wont  amongst  such  persons,  fell  to  discussing  various 
abstruse  matters  connected  with  theology  and  metaphysics, 
airing  the  ideas  they  had  formed  or  picked  up  in  their  inter- 
course with  thoughtful  men  in  many  cities, 

A  Muhammadan  with  whom  I  was  in  constant  touch, 
and  who  had  an  especial  weakness  for  the  society  oifaqiiirs, 
being  himself  in  diligent  quest  of  a  competent  alchemist 
and  transmuter  of  metals,  found  himself  in  their  company 
and  listening  to  their  discourse,  was  struck  by  the  subtlety 
they  displayed,  and  charmed  by  the  manner  of  their  speech. 

"While  they  talked,"  he  said,  "it  was  as  if  roses 
fluttered  about  from  mouth  to  mouth."  One  anecdote  or 
story  which  was  related  by  one  of  the  faquirs  especially 
took  the  Muslim  listener's  fancy,  and  was  retailed  for  my 
information.  As  an  illustration  of  the  kind  of  talk  indulged 
in  by  some  of  these  wandering  devotees,  it  seems  worth 
reproducing  here. 

There  once  lived  a  faquir  who,  it  came  to  be  known, 
would  not  utter  the  name  of  God.  Pious  people  were  sur- 
prised and  scandalised  at  such  behaviour  on  the  part  of  a 
professedly  religious  man,  while  the  wicked  and  light-minded 
would  annoy  the  man  when  they  met  him  by  calling  upon 
him  to  utter  the  word  "  Allah."  His  invariable  answer  was 
"  lahoul"  the  initial  word  of  an  Arabic  text  used  as  an  invo- 
cation against  evil  spirits.  Such  very  unseemly  behaviour 
became  a  subject  of  comment,  and  he  was  at  length  sum- 
moned to  appear  in  person  before  the  Great  Mogul  Emperor 
Akbar,  when  the  following  dialogue  took  place : — 

"  What  conduct  is  this  of  jonrs,  faquir-sahih  ? "  inquired 
the  Emperor.  "It  is  reported  that  you,  a  professedly 
religious  man,  object  to  utter  the  name  of  God !  Surely  this 
is  the  conduct  of  a  Kafir  (infidel),  and  should  be  punished 
with  death.     What  have  you  to  say  for  yourself  ? " 

"  Am  I  already  condemned.  Great  King,  or  is  your 
Majesty  willing  to  hear  me  ? "  asked  the  faquir. 

"  Speak ! "  said  the  Emperor  sternly ;  "  I  listen  ! " 

"Is  there  amongst  your  Majesty's  courtiers  any  men 
who  have  the  good  fortune  to  be  regarded  by  their  master 
as  heroic  and  noble  personages  ? " 

330 


FAQUIRS 

"Yes,  many,"  replied  the  Emperor,  "but  amongst  my 
generals  there  are  four  who,  I  beUeve,  are  quite  unmatched 
in  heroism  throughout  the  wide  world." 

"And  amongst  these  four,  is  there  one  whom  your 
Majesty  considers  especially  deserving  of  honour  and  esteem, 
and  standing  in  the  very  first  rank  of  men  ? " 

"  Yes,  there  is  one  pre-eminent  even  amongst  the  band 
of  heroes  I  am  proud  to  have  about  me." 

"  May  I,  Great  King,  speak  to  this  hero  aside,  and  has 
he  your  gracious  permission  to  do  as  I  ask  him  to  do  ? " 

"  Yes,  I  freely  afford  him  my  permission  to  do  anything 
proper  and  reasonable." 

The  accused  led  away  the  great  noble  to  a  retired  corner 
of  the  Durbar  and  requested  him  to  go  up  to  the  Emperor 
on  his  throne,  and  say  to  him  these  words  and  these  words 
only,  "Akbar,  the  faquir  has  desired  me  to  stand  before 
you." 

The  great  noble  refused  to  carry  out  this  request ;  but 
after  a  little  while  returned  to  his  place  near  the  Emperor. 

"  Ask  the  great  nobleman,  sire,"  said  the  accused  man, 
"if  he  has  done  what  I,  with  your  Majesty's  permission, 
bid  him  do?" 

Interrogated  on  this  point,  the  courtier  had  to  admit 
that  he  had  not  carried  out  the  faquir's  wishes.  "They 
were,"  he  said,  "  too  outrageous.  The  man  actually  wanted 
me  to  come  forward  in  open  Durbar  and  address  our  lord, 
the  Emperor,  familiarly  by  his  name." 

The  ceremonial  propriety  of  the  courtiers  was  shocked 
at  the  indecorous  suggestion ;  but  the  faquir  addressing 
the  Emperor  said :  "  Now,  Great  King,  if  a  courtier  next 
to  yourself  in  rank  will  not  venture  to  accost  your  Majesty 
— who,  after  all,  are  only  an  earthly  sovereign — by  your 
august  name,  do  you  wonder  at  my  hesitating  to  pronoimce 
the  name  of  the  Divine  King  of  Kings,  the  Almighty  Ruler 
of  the  Universe  ? " 


The  few  examples  I  have  given  of  faquirs  and  their 
doings,  and  of  the  stories  current  about  celebrated  Mushm 
saints,  will  be  sufficient  to  indicate  a  very  marked  contrast 

331 


BRAHMANS,   THEISTS,   AND  MUSLIMS   OF   INDIA 

between  the  standpoint  of  the  Muhammadan  in  relation  to 
Allah,  and  that  of  the  Hindu  towards  his  gods.  The  Hindu 
sadhu  or  saint  acquires  supernatural  power  over  himself, 
his  fellow-men,  and  nature  generally  by  virtue  of  ascetic 
practices,  even  in  spite  of  the  lesser  deities  of  his  Olympus ; 
whereas  the  Muslim  saint  derives  his  prepotency  only 
through  the  favour  of  the  one  God.  This  striking  dis- 
similarity is  of  course  due  to  the  uncompromising  mono- 
theism of  Islam  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  polytheism  lost 
in  pantheism  of  the  Brahman  s  on  the  other ;  and  though  it 
may  be  admitted  that  the  Indian  Muslhn  legends  are  often 
tinged  with  Hindu  feeling  to  a  considerable  degree ;  that  the 
mystic  doctrines  of  the  Sufis  were  probably  derived  from 
Hindu  philosophy  and  that  the  Brahmanical  caste  system 
has,  to  some  slight  extent,  influenced  the  social  arrangements 
of  certain  Indian  Muhammadans,  nevertheless  there  is  no 
possibility  of  any  effectual  bridging  of  the  abysmal  gulf  which 
separates  the  two  great  religions  of  India,  Hinduism  and 
Islam. 


332 


INDEX 


Abbas,  brother  of  Imam  Husain,  288. 
Abdal,  the,  Muhammadan  caste,  62. 
Abd-ur-rahman,  assassin  of  Ali,  283. 
Abubakr,  Muslim  khalif,  283. 
Acharaja,    the,    low-caste   Brahman 

priest,   267,   268,   269,    270,   271, 

273. 
Adam,  Mr.,  missionary,  102. 
Adesh,  Keshub's  doctrine  of  divine 

immanence,    123-124,    130,    131, 

132,  134-135,  147,  153. 
Adhmarag,     the,     outside     Lahore 

crematory,  265,  267,  268,  269. 
Adwaitism  or  Pantheism  of  Sankar- 

acharya,  156. 
Afghanistan,  76. 
Africa,  South,  racial  feeling  in,  69- 

70. 
Africans,  West,  in  America,  67-68. 
Agni,  personification  of  fire,  11,  140. 
Agra,  Taj  of,  276. 
Ajlaf,  social  Muhammadan  division, 

62. 
Ajmere,  sati  at,  192. 
Akalis,  the,  253. 
Akbar,  Mogul  Emperor,  Swami'sstorv 

of,  168-169. 
Akhra,   human    sacrifice  attempted 

at,  8. 
Al-Bakia  cemetery,  62. 
AlexandraGirls' School,  Bombay,  210. 
Al-Hur,    Muslim    officer,    285,    286, 

287. 
Ali  Akbar,  son  of  Husain,  287,  288. 
Ali    Ashgar    or    Abdidlah,    son    of 

Husain,  death  of,  288. 
Ali,  Khalifah,  Muhammad's  son-in- 
law,  282,  283,  284. 
Allah,  293,  313  ;  worship  of,  4,  332. 
Allies,  Thomas  W.,  author  of  The 

Monastic  Life  frovi  the  Fathers  of 

the  Desert  to  CharleTtiagne,  273. 
Alviella,  D',  Count,  author  of  Co/i- 

temporary  Evolution  of  Religious 

Thought,  146. 
America,  172,  215  ;  caste  system  in, 

52, 67-69,  86-87  ;  CivU  War  in,  38  ; 


Theosophists  of,  32  ;  Unitarianism 

in,  148-149. 
Amma,  Hindu  goddess,  82. 
Amma  Kodagas  Brahmans,  the,  82. 
Amrit  Kund  (Amritsar),  262,  263. 
Amrita  (the  water  of  life),  259,  260, 

262. 
Amritsar,  198,  255,  258,  262,  320; 

temperance  play  at,  173. 
Andichya      Brahmans,       the,      re- 
marriage of  widows  among,  199. 
Angir-asnwriti,  the,  181,  185. 
Anjuman-i-Pimjab,   Muslim  Socieiy 

of  the,  220. 
"  Apostle  of  Temperance,"  the,  172. 
Apostolic    Durbar     of    the    "Xew 

Dispensation,"  146. 
Arabia,  285. 
Arabs,  the,  284. 
Aijxma,  a  hero  of  the  Mahabharata, 

10,  144. 
Armenia,  76. 

Army,  Indian,  the,  58-59. 
Amo's  Vale  Cemetery,  108. 
Aryans,  the,  7,  31,  76,  77,  78,  79, 

80,  81  ;  Brahman,  55,  80. 
Arya-Samaj,    Hindu    sect,    hall    of 

the,  213. 
Aryavarta,  30. 
Aryo-Dravidians,  origin  of  the,  77, 

80. 
Ai-zal,    Indian   Muhammadan   social 

division,  62. 
Ashraf,  Indian  Muhammadan  social 

division,  62. 
Ashoraa,  sacred  day  of,  282. 
Assam,  56,  81. 
Assyrians,  the,  26. 
Asuras,  the,  259,  260. 
Atarva,  the,  Vedic  hymns,  76. 
Ayishah,  wife  of  Muhammad,  79,  283. 
Azadah,  a  Brahman,  41-42. 

B 

Baba    Farid,    Muhammadan    saint, 

312-313. 
Baba     Jungu     Shah,     a     Punjabi 

saint,  314-316. 


333 


INDEX 


Babylon,  26,  285. 

Baden-Powell,  H    B.,  author  of  The 

Indian   Village   Community,   77, 

78. 
Bamachari,  sect  of  the  Saktas,  27. 
Bangalore,  95. 
Barada    Brahmans,    remaniage    of 

widows  among  the,  199. 
Basantotsava      (spring     saturnalia), 

248. 
Bediya,  the,  Muhammadan  caste,  62. 
Behar,  sati  at,  192. 
Benares,  city  of,  95,  101,  221,  265, 

327 
Bengal,  3,  4,  5,  6,  26,  27,  28,  42,  56, 

80,  100,  104,  117,  130,  170,  183, 

184,  186,  208,  223,  248 ;  Bank  of, 

117 ;  Brahmans  of,    59  ;   Brahma 

Samaj   in,    110;  people   of,    4,   7, 

28,  32-33,  100 ;  religion  of,  24,  26, 

30. 
Bengalis,     of     Mongolo  -  Dravidian 

race,  7. 
Bentinck,  Lord  William,  192. 
Bezwada,  41. 
Bhagavad-gita,  the,  144. 
Bhairob,  a  form  of  Shiva,  15. 
Bliaktas,  section  of  Samajists,  130  ; 

inspii'ation  of,  131. 
Bhakti  (living  faith),  Keshub's  belief 

in,  124. 
Bhandarkar,       Professor,       C.I.E., 

pamphlet  of,  182,  200. 
Bhattacharjee,  Dr.  J.   N.,  author  of 

Hindu  Castes  and  Sects,  13,  26,  27, 

37,  42,  46,  81. 
Bhattias  of  Bombay,    Hindu   caste, 

excommunication  of,  43. 
Bhattias  of   Hurdwar,   the,   Hindu 

caste,  43. 
Bhera,  198. 
Bhikhaji,    Dadaji,   lawsuit  of,   178, 

179. 
Bhojakas  of  Jvalamukhi,  the,  82. 
Bihishtis,  the  (water-carriers),  306. 
Bihisti   Darwdza,  at  tomb  of  Baba 

Farid,  313. 
Bindraban  (place  of  God's  presence), 

268. 
Bobbin,  Maharajah  of,  41. 
Bolpur  station,    the^    144 ;    chittim 

Bombay,'  56,'  164,    176,    208,   210, 

319  ;  Governor  of,  200. 
Bose,  Babu  Jogindra  Nath,  116,  209. 
Bose,  Shib  Chunder,  author  of  JETiTic^oos 

as  they  are,  16,  23,  27,  42,  48, 175, 

223 ;  remarks  on  Hindu  society, 

155. 
Bose,     Suresh     Chunder,     supports 

Mozoomdar,  148. 


Brahma,  Hindu  god,  50  ;  legend  of, 
13-14. 

Brahmaism,  attitude  of,  to  Christi- 
anity, 151,  156-157  ;  leaders  of, 
150  ;  political  aspect  of,  155-156  ; 
social  aspect  of,  154-155  ;  spiritual 
aspect  of,  156  ;  spread  of,  163,  154. 

Brahmanas,  the,  52,  103. 

Brahmans,  the,  13,  26,  28,  35,  90, 
106,  107,  320;  Bengali,  59,  80; 
conversions  by,  82-84  ;  customs  of, 
39,  41,  60,  209  ;  employments  of, 
58-59,  94,  219,  261-262  ;  insolence 
of,  37,  40,  69  ;  marriage  among,  44, 
56,  58,  81,  184  ;  position  of,  49, 
50,  51-54,  55,  73,  80-82,  84-85,  95, 
96-97  ;  sub-castes  of,  56,  58,  59. 

Brahma  Samaj,  Adi  (Brahmo  Samaj, 
BrahmoSomaj),  Hindu  sect;  chapel 
of,  114-115  ;  creed  of,  100,  105, 
110,  111,  112,  114,  11.5,  151  ; 
mandir  (church)  of,  105,  110; 
number  of,  110,  116  ;  private  life 
of,  112-113,  119,  120;  schism  in, 
113. 

Brahma  Samaj  of  India,  Hindu  re- 
forming sect,  creed  of  the,  113-114, 
118,  129-133,  see  Adesh  and 
Keshub ;  discord  in,  147-150 ; 
mandir  of,  129,  132,  140,  152; 
marriages  in,  118-120,  132,  198  ; 
schism  in,  130-133,  137  ;  strength 
of,  119,  131,  149 ;  works  with 
American  Unitarians,  148. 

Brahmavidyala  (a  school),  114. 

British  Government,  Indian,  88-89, 
94,  96-97, 102,  153,  160,  166,  185, 
189,  198,  199,  200,  201,  290. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  autlior  of 
Hydriotaphia,  Urn-Burial,  273. 

Browning,  Oscar,  author  of  Impres- 
sions of  Indian  Travel,  92, 232-233. 

Buckland,  C.  E.,  author  of  Bengal 
under  its  Lieideiiant-Governors,  114. 

Buddh  Gaya,  the,  Bodhi  tree  at,  115. 

Buddhism,  81,  101. 

Bulgaria,  fire-walking  in,  327. 

Bura  Brahmans,  the,  59. 

Bume,  Rev.  T.  H.,  117. 

Burton,  Sir  R.,  author  of  Pilgrimage 
to  Al-Madinah  and  Mecca,  61-62. 

Busra,  Mbaidullah,  governor  of,  285. 


Caird,  author  of  The  Evolution  of 
Religion,  97. 

Calcutta,  6,  7,  8,  22,  41,  90,  91,  100, 
102,  103,  105,  108,  111,  129,  133, 
149,  159,  214,  299 ;  description 
of,   3-4  ;    Presidency   College   at, 


334 


INDEX 


113  ;  sati  at,  193  ;  Town  HaU  at, 
124. 

Carpenter,  Mary,  author  of  The  Last 
Days  in  England  of  the  Rajah  Ram 
Mohun  Roy,  107. 
Castes,    American,     67-69,     70-71, 
86-88 ;    Hindu    commerce,    influ- 
ence of,  on,  34-35,  36-37,  38,  93  ; 
Crozier,  Dr.,  on,  86-88;  divisions 
of,  49-50,  55,  56,  57,  188  ;  educa- 
tional influence  of,  93-94 ;  effect^of, 
on  Christian  Hindu  converts,  74  ; 
effect  of,  on  European,  40-41,  44, 
63  ;  European,  64-67,  69,    71-72, 
88,   159  ;  expulsion  from,  46-47, 
61,  88  ;  family  life,  influence  on, 
60,   93 ;    Muslim,   61  ;   origin    of 
new  castes,  42,  43,  58,  76-79,  82- 
85 ;  political  aspect  of,  92  ;  rules  of, 
34-36,  39-48,  60,  88-96  ;  tribunals 
of,    44-45 ;  weakening  of,   41-42, 
88-89,  90,  95-98,  113,  114. 
Cawnpore,  sati  at,  193. 
Census  of  India  Eeport,  55-57,  62,  80. 
Chaitanite,    Hindu  sect   of  Bengal, 

19-20,  24. 
Chaitanya,  Bengali  prophet,  20,  124. 
Chamars,  the,  Hindu  caste,  56. 
Cham  pier,  M.,  187. 
Chandalas,  children  of  mixed  Hindu 

marriages,  44. 
Chandrayana,    a    Hindu    penance, 

185. 
Cheltenham,  Ladies'  College  at,  215. 
Cheruman  cultivators,  the,  57. 
Chicago,  144,  148. 
Chitral,  77. 

Christianity  in  Bengal,  24;  Brah- 
maism,  attitude  of,  to,  156-157  ; 
conversion  to,  107,  155,  214-215  ; 
Keshub's  views  on,  113,  118,  12.''>- 
134,  135,  139,  140,  141,  142-143, 
145,  152, 156-157  ;  Muhammadan- 
ism,  conflict  ^vith,  280. 
Chuckerbutty,  Jadoo  Nath,  letter  of, 

123. 
Chunder,      Bholanath,     author     of 

Travels  of  a  Hindoo,  222. 
Civil  Marriage  BOl  (India),  119-120. 
Claviere,  E.  de  Maulde  la,  author  of 
The   Women  of  ike  Renaissance, 
187. 

Cochin,  census  report,  56. 
Coconada,  36,  38. 
Collegia,  Roman,  64. 
Collet,   Miss  E.   B.,  author  of  The 
Brahma  Tear-Book  for  1877,  131, 
156. 
Constantine,  constitution  of,  64. 
Constantinople,  280,  287. 
Cooch  Behar,  Rajah  of,  132. 


Coorg,  82. 

Cotton,  Bishop,  117. 

Cox,  Mr,,  author  of  Mythology  of  the 

Aryan  Nations,  11. 
Crooke,  W.,  author  of  The  Popular 

Religion  and  Folk-lore  of  Northern 

Iivdia,  250,  275,  313. 
Crozier,  Dr.  John,  author  of  (7it?i/Ma- 

tion  and  Progress,  86. 


Dabistan,  The,  27,  41. 

Daksha,  incarnation  of  Brahma,  13. 

Dakshinachari,   sect  of  the  Saktas, 

27. 
Darbal  Janazah,  62. 
Das,  Guru  Bam,  262,  263. 
Dayabhaga,  the,  181. 
Delhi,  5  ;  Emperor  of,  106. 
Derozio,  H.jL.  V.,  103,  104. 
Deva  Dharma  Mandir,  Lahore,  212, 

213. 
Devi,  goddess,  19. 
Dhanvantari,  Hindu  god,  259. 
Diocletian,  Emperor,  64. 
Distant,  W.  L.,  author  of  A  Mono- 
graph of  the  Oriental  Cicadida, 
25. 
Diwa-wattee  lamp,  the,  266,  274. 
Doms,  the,  Hindu  caste,  56. 
Dosahra,  the,  festival  of,  25. 
Dravidian,  Aryo-,  77,  80  ;  Brahmans, 
the,   55,  82 ;   Mongolo  race,  100  ; 
race    of,   80,    81 ;    conversion    to 
Brahmanism,  84. 
Dvija,  "twice-born,"  caste  division, 

49. 
Dubois,  Abb^  J.  A.,  106,  204-205. 
Dutf,    Dr.    Alexander,     missionary, 
13,    104,    108 ;   author  of   India 
and  Indian    Missions,    including 
Sketches   of  the  Gigantic    System 
of  Hinduism,  15. 
Duldul,    Muhammad's    mule,    302 ; 

procession  of,  302,  305. 
Durga,   the    wife    of   Siva,    Hindu 
goddess,    11,  18,  22,  24  ;  descrip- 
tion of,  21  ;  Pujah  procession,  22- 
23,  25  ;  worship  of,  24-25,  136. 
Dutt,  Mr.  Shoshee  Chunder,  97. 


Eastern  thought  compared  toWestern , 
127-128,  135,  136,  210,  213. 

Education,  influence  of,  82,  224-226, 
261-262;  female,  208,  215;  on 
widows,  215-216. 

Egypt,  285. 


335 


INDEX 


Egyptians,  the,  273,  274,  276. 
Eucharist,  the,  Keshub's  adaptation 

of,  140. 
Euphrates,  the  river,  286,  289,  294. 


Faquirs,  Muhammadan,  stories  of, 
311,  312,  314,  316,  319-321,  328, 
330 ;  influence  on  secular  affairs, 
321. 

Fatima,  292,  296,  297,  298. 

Fatima,  the  son  of,  285,  287. 

Fergusson,  Dr.,  author  of  History  of 
Indian  and  Eastern  Architecture, 
5. 

Festivals,  Hindu,  Basantotsava,  248  ; 
Dosahra,  25 ;  Durga-puja,  8,  23, 
25  ;  Hola,  252  ;  Holi,  242,  252  ; 
Kali,  8  ;  Suraj-Kanth,  220. 

Festivals,  Muhammadan  —  Duldul 
procession,  302  ;  Kasim's  marriage 
procession,  297  ;  Muharram,  the, 
279. 

Feudatory  princes,  160. 

Fiji  Islands,  the,  327. 

Fraser,  Mrs.  Mary  Crawford,  226. 

Freemasonry  in  India,  231-232. 

Frogmore,  276. 

Funerals,  Hindu,  264. 


Gaekvvar  of  Baroda,  the,  210-211. 

Gait,  Mr.,  62. 

Gajadhur,  Hindu  fanatic,  8. 

Gandharvas,  place  of,  50. 

Ganesa,  Hindu  God  of  Wisdom,  18, 

244  ;  temple  of,  19. 
Ganges,   the  river,  5,   13,    77,  219, 

260,  265,  274,  275. 
GarbhMhana  ceremony,  the,  182. 
Gautama,  Hindu  god,  115. 
Ghamat,  K..  E.,  Parsee,  author  of  Tlic 

Present  State  of  India,  235. 
Ghazis,  Muslim  fanatics,  281. 
Gibbon,  historian,  289. 
Gidumal,    Dayaram,    LL.B.,    C.S., 

author  of  The  Life  and  Life-work 

of  Behramji  M.   Malabar i,    181, 

183,  191,  195. 
Gilgit,  77. 

Godavery,  the  river,  36. 
Goodeve,  Dr.  Henry,  107. 
Golden  temple,  the,  Amritsar,  258- 

259. 
Goswamee,  Bijoy  Kessen,  letter  of, 

123. 
Gotras,  Hindu  patriarchs,  53. 
Gouda  Brahmans,  the,  60. 


Greeks,  knowledge  of  Hindu  castes, 
55  ;  social  customs  of,  77. 

Orunth  Sahib,  The,  sacred  book  of 
the  Sikhs,  255. 

Gujarati  Brahmans,  the,  58 ;  re- 
marriage of  widows  among  the,  1 99. 

Gujrat,  314. 

Guru,  Hindu  spiritual  guide,  46  ; 
Brahman,  58  ;  worshipped,  122- 
123. 

Gusains,  Hindu  sect,  268. 

H 

Hafsah,  Muhammad's  third  wife, 
283. 

Halalkhor,  Muhammadan  caste,  62. 

Halicarnassus,  mausoleum  at,  276. 

Hardwar,  233,  274. 

Hartmann,  Edward  von,  141. 

Hasan,  Khalifah,  Muhammad's 
grandson,  282,  283,  28  i. 

Hastinapur,  249. 

Hastings,  Warren,  100. 

Heraclitus,  doctrine  of,  33. 

Hijrah,  flight  of  Muhammad  from 
Mecca,  285. 

Himalaya  (Himavan),  goddess  of 
mountains,  personification  of  sati, 
14. 

Himalayas,  mountains  of  the,  101. 

Himalayas,  valleys  of  the,  25. 

Hinduism,  8,  22,  30,  32,  81,  82,  99, 
102,  107-108,  120-121,  125,  138, 
151,  155,  161  ;  conservatives  of, 
161  ;  the  "  Higher"  Hinduism,  30, 
32  ;  legends  of,  22,  50,  53,  259, 
260,  262-263  ;  polytheism  of,  11, 
19,  21,  81,  101,  102 ;  reformera 
of,  100,  111,  113,  129,  133,  141, 
151,  158-162,  165-166,  167,  176, 
229,  256  ;  Scriptures  of,  55,  110- 
112,  136,  209 ;  universality  of, 
144. 

Hindu  College,  the,  103. 

Hoernle,  Dr.,  77. 

Hola,  festival  of,  252-255. 

Holi,  festival  of,  241,  250-251,  252, 
254  ;  the  pure,  256. 

Holika,  Hindu,  She  demon,  250. 

Hom  ceremony,  the,  140. 

Hone,  William,  author  of  Ancient 
Mysteries  described,  295. 

Hugli  in  Bengal,  290. 

Hugli  River,  the,  3,  5. 

Hunter,  Sir  W.  W. ,  author  of  Life 
of  the  Earl  of  Mayo,  89,  192. 

Husainabad,  the,  Lucknow,  290. 

Husain,  Imam,  282,  284,  285,  286, 
287,  288,  289,  293,  294,  295,  296, 
299,  301,  324,  325,  327. 


336 


INDEX 


I 

da'1-Azha  or  Id'-i-Zuha,  Muslim 
feast,  281. 

Idu'1-Fitr,  Muslim  feast,  281. 

Iluvan  or  Tiyan  caste,  the,  57. 

Imambara,  Shiah  theatre,  290,  295. 

India,  aborigines  of,  77,  79,  81,  82- 
84  ;  Central,  61  ;  commercialism 
in,  94  ;  Eastern,  aborigines  of,  12  ; 
religion  of,  30,  99  ;  Northern,  39, 
56,  76,  230,  264,  282,  297  ;  slavery 
in,  80 ;  Southern,  56,  80,  264 ; 
Western,  56,  232  ;  Upper,  248. 

Indian  Reform  Association,  129. 

Indian  universities,  212. 

Indra,  Aryan  personification  of  the 
atmosphere,  76. 

Indra,  place  of,  50. 

Infant  marriage,  custom  of,  180-190. 

Ingram,  J.  K.,  author  oi  The  History 
of  Slavery  arid  Serfdom,  64. 

Islam.     See  Muhammadanism. 


Jacqueraont,   M.   Victor,  naturalist, 

author  of  Voyage  dam  Vlnde,  105, 

106. 
Jadah,  wife  of  Hasan,  282,  283. 
Jagadhatri,  a  Hindu  aspect  of  God,  138. 
Jainism,  religion  of  the  Jains,  81. 
Jangam  Baba,  fire-walker,  327. 
Japan,  326,  327  ;  old  family  system 

in,  225  ;  Shinto  priests  of,  327. 
Javala  Brahmans,  the,  60. 
Jerusalem,  280. 
Jetpnr  in  Kattywar,  infanticide  at, 

194. 
Joshee,  Mrs.  Auandabai,  215. 
Judgson,  Colonel,  327. 
Jumna  River,  the,  77,  219. 
Jtis  conniibii,  Hindu,  43,  44. 


Kabir,  Hindu  reformer,  108. 

KaflBrs,  European  treatment  of,  69-70. 

Kali,  the  black  tongue  of  Agni,  II. 

Kali,  Hindu  goddess,  5,  6,  8,  12,  18, 
19,  21,  24,  25,  136  ;  character  of, 
7,  10-11,  12,  15-16;  description 
ot  image  at  Calcutta,  9-10,  11,  15  ; 
legends  of,  12-13. 

Kali-Ghat,  temple  of,  4,  8,  9, 15,  19, 
132  ;  description  of,  5-7  ;  legend 
of,  13  ;  priests  of,  7  ;  sacrifices  at, 
17  ;  sanctity  of,  15. 

Kali-ism,  character  of,  16,  20 ; 
votaries  of,  15-16,  17-19, 

Y 


Kaiika  Purana,  Hindu  sacred  book,  8. 

Kamina,  Muhammadan  social 
division,  62. 

Kammalan,  Hindu  caste,  57. 

Karali,  the  terrific,  tongue  of  Agni,  11 . 

Karbala,  300,  305,  306  ;  battle  of, 
282,  283,  286,  289,  290,  292,  293, 
294,  296. 

Karhade  Brahmans,  the,  26. 

Karma  (actions  in  previous  life),  31, 
61,  81,  112. 

Kashmir,  5,  80,  328. 

Kasim,  Husain's  nephew,  288,  296, 
297,  298. 

Kaveri  Brahmans,  the,  82. 

Kayastha  caste,  the,  26. 

Kesh,  Pandit  Rishi,  article  in  Journal 
of  the  Anjuman-i- Punjab,  248. 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  Hindu  re- 
former, 113,  114,  119;  author  of 
Diary  in  England,  126 ;  activity  of, 
117,  130 ;  appreciation  of,  146- 
147  ;  ascetic  oniers,  initiates,  131  ; 
biographical  sketch  of,  129  ; 
Britain,  visits,  126-128,  129 ; 
character  of,  117,  122,  137,  156  ; 
death  of,  145-147  ;  decline  of,  131- 
133,  137,  143 ;  lectures,  124,  126, 
127-128,  130,  135,  136,  138,  142, 
143,  144,  145;  marriages,  infant, 
on,  183 ;  moral  play,  produces, 
142;  Max  Miiller,  letter  to,  141  ; 
observances  of,  139-140,  142 ; 
views  of,  123,  124-126,  127-128, 
129-130,  131,  134-135,  136,  137, 
138,  140,  141,  142-143,  147,  151, 
152,sc«Adesh,  also  "New  Dispensa- 
tion," the;  worshipped  as  mvine, 
122-124,  154. 

Khazanah-wallah  faquir,  316. 

King,  C.  W.,  author  of  The  Gnostics 

and  their  Semains,  12, 
Kolis,  the  199. 

Koran,  texts  from  the,  297. 

Kowls,  the,  sect  of  the  Saktas,  27. 
Krichchhra,     the,     Hindu    punish- 
ment, 48. 
Krishna  (Vishnu),  Hindu  god,    10, 
14,  19,  24,  30,  52,  124,  140,  144, 
244,  250,  264. 
Kriya-Yoga-Sara,  the,  52. 
Kshatriyas,  the,    Hindu   caste,    35, 
49,  50,  52,  54,  56,  60  ;  extermina- 
tion of,  53. 
Kufa,  282,  283,  285,  286,  289,  294. 
Kulambis,  the,  Hindu  caste,  199. 
Kulinism,  28,  29. 
Kulins,   Brahmans  of  Bengal,   the, 

28,  59,  184. 
Kimbigors,     the.     Brahman      sub- 
caste,  58. 

337 


INDEX 


Kundoo,  sacred  pond  (Calcutta),  5, 

19. 
Kurakshatra,  battlefield  of,  53. 
Kurta  of  the  Muchooa  Bazaar  Street, 

Lahore,  the,  132. 
Kusha,  sacred  grass,  269. 


Lahore,  5,  17,  39,    132,    148,    154, 

163,  198,  212,  241,  242,  26.5,  27.'). 

299,  302,  320,  323,  327. 
Lalbegi,  Muhammadan  caste,  62. 
Lai,  Piyare,  B.A.,  210. 
Lang,     Mr.      Andrew,     author     of 

Modern  Mythology,  328. 
Lashmi,  a  Hindu  aspect  of  God,  138. 
Lawrence,  Lord,  118,  135. 
Leadbeater,   0.  M.,    author   of   The 

Other  Side  of  Death,  32. 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  276. 
Leonard,  G.  S.,  author  of  History  of 

the  Brahma  Samaj,  100,  102,  112, 

132. 
Lhassa,  25. 
Liddon,  Canon,  15. 
Loki,  Teuton  god,  1 1 . 
Lortet,  Dr.,  274. 
LucknoAv,  7,  39. 
Lyall,  Sir  Alfred,  author  of  Asiatic 

Studies,  120. 


M 

M'Crindle,   Dr.    J.    W.,    author   of 

Ancient  India,  55. 
Madana  (Cupid),  Hindu  god,  248. 
Madina,  294. 
Mahabharata,  the,  Indian  epic,  10, 

51,  53,  111,  259. 
Maha-Brahman  priest,  the,  267. 
Mahadeva,  a  Hindu  aspect  of  God, 

138. 
Mahadeva   (Siva),    Hindu    god,    18, 

244  ;  temple  of,  at  Lahore,  265. 
Maha-Patra,  "the  great  vessel,"  267. 
Mahisha,  the,  giant,  21. 
Mahratta  country,  the,  26. 
Mahtab,  B.  C,  Maharajah  of  Burd- 

wan,  224. 
Main,  Sir  Henry,  119,  120,  197. 
Malabari,  Behramji,  Parsee,  176-177, 

185. 
Manasbal,  the  faquir  of,  328. 
Mandir  of  Kali-Ma  (Calcutta),  the,  6. 
Mani  Kb  el  country,  the,  280. 
Manu,  laws  of,  46,  49,  111,  183,  199. 
Mara  the  Evil  One,  115. 
Marriages,  European,  186  ;  Brahmic 

Church  in,  118-120,  154  ;  Hindu, 


43,  179,  181  ;  mixed  Hindu,  44, 
232  ;  infant,  175-177,  209  ;  Mu- 
hammadan, 179,  188  ;  Parsee,  179  ; 
test  case,  178-179. 

Maruts,  place  of,  50. 

Mauritius,  327. 

Maya  (illusion),  female  form  of, 
260. 

Maydhasoor  giant,  the,  249. 

Maypur  in  the  Punjab,  sati  at,  192. 

Mazumdar,  B.  C,  on  the  origin  and 
history  of  Durga,  23. 

Mecca,  233,  285,  286,  290. 

Medina,  285. 

Megasthenes,  ancient  Greek  am- 
bassador, 55,  181,  209. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  128,  168. 

Miracles  of  Kali,  17-19. 

Missionaries,  Christian,  256-257. 

Mithila,  Brahmans  of,  26. 

Mitra,  Dr.  Rajendra  Lalla,  author  of 
Indo-Aryans,  8,  16,  25. 

Mittra,  Peary  Chand,  author  of  A 
Biographical  Sketch  of  David  Hare, 
104,  108. 

Mlecchas,  the,  95, 

Mochigors,  the,  Brahman  sub-caste, 
58. 

Mongolian  race,  80-81. 

Mormons,  the,  87. 

Moses,  Keshub's  communication 
with,  140. 

Motherhood  of  God,  Keshub's 
doctrine  of  the,  136-137. 

Moulvis,  the,  of  Patna,  100. 

Mozoomdar,  Mr.  P.  C,  148  ;  death 
of,  149  ;  travels  of,  148  ;  author  of 
Aims  and  Principles  of  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen,  130  ;  and  Faith  and 
Progress  of  the  Brahma  Samaj, 
137  ;  and  Oriental  Christ,  149. 

Muawiyah,  Muslim  Khalifah,  283, 

Muhammad,  the  Prophet,  133,  179, 
283,  293,  294. 

Muhammad  (al-Mahdi,  Imam),  son  of 
al-Hasan  al-Askari,  284. 

Muhammadans,  Indian,  34-35,  102, 
108  ;  castes  of,  61,  62,  73,  280  ; 
descent  of,  281  ;  influence  of,  99, 
100,  101,  105  ;  Keshub's  views  on, 
142  ;  marriages  of,  199  ;  number 
of,  280  ;  religion  of,  25,  125,  280- 
231,  295  ;  saints,  see  Faquirs. 

Muharram  celebration,  the,  279, 
282,  290,  295,  296,  297,  302-307  ; 
month  of,  285,  313. 

Muir,  Dr.,  author  of  Original 
Sanskrit  Texts,  50,  53. 

Muir,  Sir  William,  author  of  The 
Caliphate :  Its  Bise,  Decline,  and 
Fall,  288,  289,  298. 


338 


INDEX 


Miiller,  Prof.  Max,  author  of 
Bioffi-aphi^  Essays,  103,  141  ; 
on  infant  marriages,  183  ;  Indian 
fables,  217  ;  Keshub's  character, 
146. 

Multan,  220,  312. 

Murree,  Himalayan  station  at,  316. 

Musjids,  the,  6. 

Mythology,  Indian,  11. 


N 

Nakhawilahs   of   Madinah,    Muslim 

caste,  61. 
Nanak,  Hindu  reformer,  108. 
Naoroji,  Mr.  Dadabhai,  M.P.,  164. 
Narayana  (Vishnu),  Hindu  god,  259, 

260. 
Xatal,  69. 

Nath,  Dewan  Narimlra,  M.A.,  165. 
National  Congress,   Hindu,  the,    at 

Lahore,  163-164,  166. 
Nature  goddesses,  worship  of,  26. 
Nawab  Asaf-ul-Daulah,  the,  290. 
Nayar,  Hindu  caste,  56. 
Negroes,  their  status  and  treatment, 

67,  68,  69,  71. 
Nepal,  kingdom  of,  96  ;  Brahmans 

of,  60,  199. 
Nepal,  mountains  of,  25. 
Nesfield,  John  C,  author  of  Brief 

View  of  Caste  System  of  the  North- 
western Provinces  and  Ovde,  57, 

275. 
"  New  Dispensation,"  Keshub's,  137- 

138,  139,  140,  141-144,  145,  148, 

152. 
Nimtollah  Burning  Ghat,  the,  115, 

145. 
Noble,  Miss,  author  of  The  Web  of 

Indian  Life,  185,  206. 


Odin,  Teuton  god,  11. 
Olympus,  the  Hindu,  13. 
Orissa,  248. 

Ozaki,  Miss,  author  of   The  Shinio 
Fire-  Walkers  of  Tokio,  327. 


Padma  Purana,  the,  52. 

Padri,  Goraknath  Ka,  Hindu  priest, 

271. 
Pak  Patau,  tomb  at,  312. 
Panchayats,  system  of,  45. 
Pandits,  Kashmir  Brahmans,  37,  39- 

40,  95,  111. 


Pantheism,  Hindu,  27,  28,  30-32,  33, 

81, 101, 105,  131, 136, 147, 156, 157. 
Pantheon,  the,  Greek,  6  ;  Hindu,  12, 

82,  136. 
Pant,  Vishnu,  a  Kashmiri  Pandit,  39. 
Paraiyan  (Pariahs),  Hindu  caste,  57, 

69. 
Paraka,  the,  Hindu  punishment,  48. 
Parasharama,  Hindu  demi-god,  53. 
"Parliament    of    Religions,"     the, 

Chicago,  144,  148,  149. 
Parsees,  the,  217  ;  ladies,  209,  217, 

232. 
Parusha  Sukta,  Vedic  hymn,  50. 
Parvati    (Sati's    personification    of), 

Hindu  goddess,  14,  244. 
Pascal,     Dr.     Th.,    author    of    Les 

D<ym'pteurs  du  Feu,  327. 
Passion  Play,  Muslim,  291. 
Patiala,  Native  State  of,  172. 
Patna,  100. 
Paul,  St.,  125. 
Pelly,    Sir   Lewis,    author    of    lite 

Miracle     Play     of    Hasan     and 

Husain,  291,  294. 
Persia,  76,  291,  292. 
Persians,  the,  284. 
Pescara,  Marquis  of,  186. 
Philadelphia,  215. 
Phoenicia,  26. 

Piajapatya,     the,     Hindu     punish- 
ment, 48. 
Pipilika  Chandrayana,   the,   Hindu 

punishment,  48. 
Pir  Ali,  Muslim  oflBcial,  42. 
Pirali  Brahmans,  the,  42. 
Pir-ji,  Muslim  faquir,  story  of,  316- 

319. 
Poljmesia,  fire-walkers  of,  326,  327. 
Pool  of  Immortality,  Amritsar,  258. 
Poona,  200,  215. 

Prahlad,  Hindu  prince,  250-251. 
Prayaschittam  ceremony,  the,  41. 
Premdevi,     Hindu     lady    lecturer, 

212-213. 
Presidency  College  at  Calcutta,  113. 
Provinces.  Central,  56, 172,  223,  248  ; 

North-West,  223  ;  United,  the,  80, 

93,  172,  249,  267. 
Pujaris,  Hindu  oflBciating  priests,  18. 
Pulayans  or  Cherumans,  the,  57. 
Punjab,  the,  Aryan  invaders  of,  77  ; 

bathing  in,    218-221  ;    Brahmans 

in,  26,  58,  80  ;  caste  in,  80,^82  ; 

Temperance  Associations  in,  172. 
Puranas,  the,  214. 
Purbiyas,  the,  302. 
Purdah,  the,  129,  130,  203. 
Purohits  (family  priests),  40. 
Purumhanso,  the,    Hindu    teacher, 

221. 


339 


INDEX 


Quakers,  the,  67. 

Quinet,  Edgar,  author  of  Lc  ginie  des 
Religions,  13. 


Race-prejudice,  genesis  and  evolution 
of,  68-69,  72-73. 

Radha,  mistress  of  Krishna,  19. 

Radhanagar,  100. 

Rahu,  evil  demon,  Hindu  legend  of, 
259,  260,  262. 

Railways,  effect  on  caste,  95. 

Rajputana,  56,  80. 

Rajputs,  the,  199. 

Rama  (Vishnu),  30. 

Ramayana,  Indian  epic,  53. 

Ramazan,    Muslim    fast,    233,    281, 
312. 

Ranade,  Mr.  Justice,  165. 

Rani  of  Jhansi,  famous  Brahman,  59. 

Raratonga,  327. 

Ravi  River,  the,  bathing  in,  217. 

Redemption,  doctrine  of,  Muslim  and 
Christian,  295. 

Rees,  J.  D.,  93. 

Registrar    of    Co-operative     Credit 
Societies  (India),  93. 

Reincarnation,    doctrine   of,   14,  31, 
32,  62,  81,  102,  112,  122,  273. 

Religion,  the,  future  of  the  world, 
127-128,  136,  141,  144-145. 

Remarriage  of  widows,  197-199. 

Rig,  the,  Vedic  hymn,  76. 

Risley,  Mr., census  report  of,  56,79,85. 

Roberts,   Lord,  author   of  Forty-one 
Years  in  India,  90-91. 

Roman  customs,  64,  77  ;  empire,  97. 

Rowbotham,  J.  E.,  author  of  Trou- 
badours and  Courts  of  Love,  31. 

Roy,  Ram  Mohun,  founder  of 
Brahma  sect,  100-103,  105,  106, 
107-109,  110,  113,  117,  150,  152; 
author  of  A  Translation  of  the 
Abridgment  of  the  Vedant  or 
Resolution  of  all  the  Veds,  102  ; 
and  The  Precept  of  Jesus,  the 
Guide  to  Peace  and  Happiness, 
102  ;  and  Muslim  Literattire,  151. 
Rukhmabai,  a  Hindu  girl-wife,  178. 
Ruqaiyah,    Muhammad's    daughter, 

283. 
Ryder,  Dr.  Emma,  author  of  Little 
Wives  of  India,  205. 


Sacritices,    Hindu,   5,    7-8,    17,    30 ; 
human,     7-8,     196 ;    of    widows 


(Sati),  13-14,  102,  108,  109,  191- 

192,  196-197. 
Sadharam      Brahma     Samaj,     the, 

Theistic  sect,  133,  152,  154. 
St.  Mary,  Wantage,  Sisters  of,  214, 

215. 
Saiva  Yogis,  the,  264, 
Sakhtas  Brahman,  the,  60. 
Saktas,  sect  of,  26. 
Sakti,   Hindu  goddess,    26,   27,   28, 

136. 
Sama,  the,  Vedic  hymns,  76. 
Samadhs,  Hindu  cenotaphs,  265,260. 
Sanathan  Dharma  Sabha  ,219,  252. 
Sandracottus,  Hindu  king,  55. 
Sannyasis,  the,  264. 
Santapana,  the,  Hindu  punishment, 

48. 
Sarasvati,    Pandita    Ramahai,    213, 

214. 
Saraswata  Brahmans,  the,  60. 
Saraswati,       Hindu      Goddess      of 

Learning,  209. 
Saraswati  River,  the,  219. 
Sarswatee,  aHindu  aspectof  God,  138. 
Sastri,  PanditSivanath,  M.  A., founder 

of  Sadharan  Brahma  Samaj,  author 

of  The  New  Dispensation  and  the 

Sadharan    Brahma    Samaj,    111, 

133,  139,  140. 
Sati.     See  Sacrifices. 
Sati,  daughter  of  Brahma,  13-14,  15. 
Scythians,  the,  80. 
Scnart,  M.,  author  oi  Les  Castes  dans 

rinde,  43,  53,  58,  77. 
Sen,  Karvana  Chunder,  145. 
Sen,  Keshub  Chunder.     See  Keshub. 
Sepoy  Revolt,  the,  59,  89-91  ;  army, 

96. 
Serauipore,  missionaries  of,  102. 
Shabaks,  a  class  of  Samaj  ists,  130. 
Shahrbanu,  wife  of  Husain,  292. 
Shakas,  the  (parts  of  the  Vedas),  53. 
Shakespeare,  117. 
Shamir,    Muslim    commander,   286, 

287,  288,  289,  292. 
Sharaf,  Muhammadau  social  division, 

62. 
Shastras,  the,  59,  111,  113,  155. 
Shea    and    Troyer's    translation    of 

Dabistan,  27,  41. 
Shenavi  Brahmans,  60. 
Sherring,   author   of  Hindu   Tribes 

and  Castes,  201. 
Shiahs,  sect  of  Muhammadans,  280, 
282,  283,  284,  287,  290,  291,  294, 
295,  296,  298. 
Shiva,  Hindu  god,  character  of,  15  ; 
image  of,  15,  261 ;  story  of,  13,  14. 
Shridevi  (Kali),  goddess,  25. 
Siapa,  system  of  mourning,  166. 


340 


INDEX 


Sidi  Ikhlef,  story  of,  327. 

Sikbism,  81. 

Sikhs,  the,  35,   172,  247,  252,  253, 

255,  258,  262. 
Simla,  118. 
Sinduvala  Brahmaus,  remaniage  of 

widows  among,  199. 
Singh,    Maharajah   Ranjit,   Sati   at 

funeral  of,  192. 
Siva,  the  great  god,  10,  12,  18,  21, 

264  ;  temples  of,  19  ;  worship  of, 

27,  30. 
Slater,    T.    E.,     author    of   Keshah 

Chandra  Sen,  111. 
Smith,  Dr.  D.  B.,  184. 
Smith,  Dr.  George,  author  of  Life  of 

Dr.  Alexander  Diiff,  102. 
Smritis,  the,  47. 
Social   Conference   at  Lahore,   163- 

165 ;    intercourse    between   Euro- 
peans and  Indian  natives,  229-237. 
Society  Islands,  the,  327. 
Sonari  Musjid,  252,  303. 
Songs,  immoral,  at  Hindu  weddings, 

222. 
Spain,  revolution  in,  106. 
Spaniards  in  Calcutta,  106. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  168,  276. 
Sri  Krishan-ji,  243. 
Stanley,  Dean,  128. 
Stephens,  Sir  Fitz- James,   89,  120, 

192. 
Strabo,  191. 

Strachey,  Sir  John,  author  of  India,  8. 
Straits  Settlements,  the,  327. 
Sudra,  Hindu  caste,  44,  49,  50,  52, 

53,  56. 
Sufi  philosophy,  101. 
Sufi-ism,  the,  of  the  Persians,  113. 
Sufis,  the,  Muslim  mystics,  280. 
Sunnis,  the,  sect  of  Muhammadaus, 

280,  282,  298. 
Sunyasi,  the,  221. 
Suraj-Kanth,  the  festival  of,  220. 
Surya,  Aryan  personification  of  the 

sun,  76. 
Sutras,  the,  52,  95. 
Suttee,  the  cold,  195. 
Swami,  lecture  of,  a  Hindu   of  the 

Yogi  sect,  167-169,  171. 
Syad,   a  lineal  descendant  of  Mu- 
hammad, 314,  323. 
Syria,  285. 


Tabuts  or  Tazias,  298. 
Tage  Brahmans,  the,  199. 
Tagore,  Babu  Dwijindra  Nath,  114. 
Tagore,  Debendra  Nath,  founder  of 
Adi  Brahma  Samaj,  116, 151, 154  ; 


author  of  the  Brahma  Dharma 
Ghrantha,  111  ;  chapel  of,  114, 
115  ;  character  of,  113  ;  cremation 
of,  11.5,  116. 

Tagore,  Dwarkanatli,  107,  108,  110. 

Tao;ore,  Maharajah  Bahadur  Sir 
Jotindra  Mohun,  327. 

Tanner,  Dr.,  fast  of,  312. 

Tantia  Topi,  famous  Brahman,  59. 

Tantras,  Hindu  Scriptures,  7, 13,  26. 

Tantric  worship,  25  ;  nature  of,  27. 

Tapta  -  Krichchhra,  Hindu  punish- 
ment, 48. 

Taylor,  Rev.  J.  Vane,  199. 

Telegu  or  Madrasi  Brahmans,  105. 

Temperance  movement  in  India,  172, 
173,  174. 

Temple  architecture,  4  ;  teaching  of, 
6-7. 

Temple  women,  200-2. 

Theosophists,  the,  32. 

Thugs,  the,  of  India,  9. 

Tibet,  tableland  of,  25,  101. 

Tirab,  280. 

Tolly's  Nullah,uriver  called,  5. 

Transmigration  of  souls.  See  Re- 
incarnation. 

Transvaal,  treatment  of  natives  in 
the,  69-70. 

Trigula  Brahmans,  the,  60. 

Trinidad,  327. 

Tnimelet,  Colonel,  author  of  Lcs 
Saints  de  V Islam,  327. 

Tukta-posh,  low  table,  18. 

Tulava  Brahmans,  the,  195. 

U 

Ubaidullah,  Governor  of  Busra,  285, 

286,  289. 
Umar  (Omar),  Muslim  Khalifah,  283, 

287. 
Umman      Kulsum,       Muhammad's 

daughter,  283. 
Unitarian  Church,  in  America,  148, 

149,  152,  154,  157  ;   in  England, 

149,  152,  154,  159. 
Upanishads,  the,  52,  103,  105,  111, 

136. 
Usman  (Othman),  secretary  of  Mu- 
hammad, 283. 


Vairagis,  the,  264. 

Vaishnavas,  the,  264. 

Vaisyas,  the  Hindu  caste  of,  35,  49, 

50,  52,  53,  54,  56,  113. 
Vaitarani  River,  the,  legend  of,  273. 
Varna  (colour),   Sanskrit  for  caste, 

49,  76. 


341 


INDEX 


Vedanta  philosophy,  the,  101,  105. 
Vedas,  the,  49-52,  76,  94,  136,  151, 

214,  219  ;   Brahma  Samaj  criticism 

of,  110,  111  ;  monotheism,  of,  103. 
Vedi,  the,  115,  147. 
A^edic  hymns,  the,  31,  50,  76,  103. 
Vishnu,  the  preserver,  Hindu  god. 

See  Krishna. 
Vittoria  Colonna,  186. 
Vivakananda,     Swami,     a     Bengali 

Sadhu,  144. 

W 

Wahabis,  the,  Indian  Muslim  reform- 
ing sect,  280. 
Wantage,  St.  Mary's  convent  at,  214, 

215. 
Ward,   Rev.    W.,   A     View    of  the 

History,  Literature,  ami  Iteligions 

of  the  Hindus,  27,  59. 
AVazir    Khan,    mosque    of,    Lahore, 

302,  303. 
Wellesley,  Marquis  of,  102. 
Western  civilisation,  127,  128,  136, 

201,  213  ;  interpretation  of  Christ's 

teaching,  135. 
West  Indies,  38. 
Westminster  Cathedral,  7. 
White,  Mr.  Edward,  141. 
Widows   in    India,    176,    179-180, 

197,  223. 
Widows  RemarriageAssociations,  197. 
Wilkins,     Rev.    J.    W.,    author    of 

Hindu  Mythology,  8,  27. 
William,  Fort  (Calcutta),  3,  91. 
Williams,     Sir    Monier,    author    of 

Religious    Thoughts   and  Life   in 

India,  7,  27,  37,  107,  125,  183. 
Wilson-Carmichael,  Amy,  author  of 

Things  as  they  arc,  94,  202. 


Wilson,  Dr.  J.,  author  of  Indian 
Castes,  47,  48,  50,  52,  53,  54,  58, 
60,  82,  94,  96,  182,  184,  185,  195, 
199,  273. 

Wilson,  Prof.  H.  H.,  author  of 
Essays  on  the  Eeligimi  of  the 
Hindus,  27,  264, 

Wollaston,  Mr.  A.  N.,  291. 

Women,  Indian  —  advocates  of 
women's  rights,  212  ;  immodest 
bathing  of,  217  ;  life  of,  203,  204- 
205  ;  Muslim,  203,  292,  300  ;  re- 
ligious instincts  of,  16-17  ;  the 
"new"  woman,  223. 

Women's  dress,  223. 


Yajnavjllkya,  Hindu  lawgiver,  61. 
Yajur,  the,  Vedic  hymns,  76. 
Yama,  God  of  Death,  realms  of,  273. 
Yavamadhya      Chandrayana,      the, 

Hindu  punishment,  48. 
Yazid,  son  of  Muawiyah,  Khalifah, 

283,  285,  286. 
Yoga,  the  practice  of,  114,  115,  140, 

141  ;  Christ's,  135. 
Yogaism,  131,  136,  152,  157. 
Yogis,  the,  Hindu  weavers,  264. 
Yogis,     the,     section     of     Brahma 

Samajists,  130,  131. 
Yudhisthira,  Hindu  king,  249. 


Zainab,  sister  of  Husain,  289. 
Zarathushtra,  217,  232. 
Zemindar  (landed  proprietor),  102. 
Zenana,    the,    women's    apartment, 

203. 
Zoroastrianism,  142. 


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